Image Formating for Digital Picture Frames

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Level 1

8 points

Image Formating for Digital Picture Frames

I purchased a Mustek PF-A700B digital picture frame as a gift for my mother-in-law. I want to send it to her loaded and ready to go. I am having difficulty getting the pictures to show full screen. The panel on the picture frame has a 4x3 and 16x9 setting. On the 4x3, the images are not distorted but only consume 4.3 inches of the 6.3 inch horizontal direction. The are consume the entire vertical space. In the 16x9 setting the images fill the screen, but they are distorted. I have tried cropping to various aspect ratios in iphoto, but I can't seem to correct the problem.

Any suggestions on what I need to do differently.

IMAC, Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Posted on Jan 21, 2007 4:01 PM

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Answer 1

JMEH

Level 4

2,482 points

Jan 21, 2007 5:09 PM in response to Janet&Art

Hi there,

If your digital picture frame has no other settings you can adjust for viewing, my only suggestion, if have not yet tried it, is to use iPhoto > Crop > Custom and insert 4 x 3 ratio. It should by theory be the exact ratio you would need to fill the picture frame edge to edge with no distortions...

BTW - you should also be able to use the 16 x 9 ratio but this will give you a widescreen format and may crop too much of your original photo...

Good luck, Rick

iMac G5 iSight 20" - 30G iPOD in Slimming Black - Mac OS X (10.4.8) - HP Pav 15" WS and Toshiba Sat 17" WS LP's - Canon 20D & A620 Kodak P880

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Answer 2

eww

Level 9

53,052 points

Jan 21, 2007 6:25 PM in response to Janet&Art

Hi, ctmusician.The picture frame itself apparently has a 16:9 aspect ratio, so to fill it without distortion you'll have to crop your pictures to match that ratio. That means you'll be losing some of the top and/or bottom of each picture. The only way around this is to buy a different picture frame that has a 4:3 aspect ratio to match that of your camera.

No digital still camera that I know of has a 16:9 aspect ratio, so it seems pretty silly to design a frame for still pictures with that ratio.

Of course any picture that you've taken in the vertical ("portrait") orientation is also going to be displayed very poorly on such a frame if most of your pictures are in horizontal ("landscape") orientation.

There's still a role for the little $3 plastic-sleeve photo album, and I'm not at all sure it wouldn't be a better choice in nearly every instance than a digital frame — especially considering the frames' high cost.

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