# Screensaver photo size



## BBMountain (Apr 3, 2009)

I know this must be posted somewhere...but I'm not finding it!  I installed the .4 screensaver hack.  I've copied a photo to the screensaver folder.  It shows up on my Kindle screen, but it doesn't fill the viewing space.  The file is a .jpg, and is 800 high by 600 wide.  There's about an inch at the bottom that isn't filled, and about 1/2" on the right isn't filled.  Any suggestions?


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## pidgeon92 (Oct 27, 2008)

That is the correct size.... Email me the .jpg and I will see if I can determine the issue. (click the envelope icon to the left under my avatar)


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## Shizu (Oct 27, 2008)

If you find the answer, please post. Same thing might happen in the future with me (or someone). Thanks.


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## BBMountain (Apr 3, 2009)

Shizu:  the answer is that I'm not very experienced with photo manipulation programs    The correct size of a photo for Kindle is 600w X 800h.  I opened a photo in a photo program & resized to 600X800 and thought that should do it.  What I didn't realize is that to get to that larger size it was not expanding the photo but was including some of the "canvas" at the bottom & to the right.  All I needed to do was select the photo with the "select" tool, and THEN resize...worked perfectly.  And it's awesome to have my own photos that I enjoy on the Kindle rather than the default ones!


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## Shizu (Oct 27, 2008)

I did that with my first couple pictures with K1. I forgot all about it.


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## Jill75 (Mar 19, 2009)

BBMountain said:


> Shizu: the answer is that I'm not very experienced with photo manipulation programs  The correct size of a photo for Kindle is 600w X 800h. I opened a photo in a photo program & resized to 600X800 and thought that should do it. What I didn't realize is that to get to that larger size it was not expanding the photo but was including some of the "canvas" at the bottom & to the right. All I needed to do was select the photo with the "select" tool, and THEN resize...worked perfectly. And it's awesome to have my own photos that I enjoy on the Kindle rather than the default ones!


Can I know what program you use to resize your pics? Thanks.


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## BBMountain (Apr 3, 2009)

Jill:  I actually used 2 programs to get the photos ready for the Kindle.  I used Paint to resize the pictures, and Microsoft Office Picture Manager to turn the color photos to b & w.  I'm sure either program alone could do both functions, but I knew how to use each for the needed task.  By the way, I don't think that color photos need to be converted to b & w...I put one of the mis-sized photos on the Kindle & it was color but it looked fine in b & w on the Kindle.
Thane


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## Forster (Mar 9, 2009)

I've had good luck with snapfire with my photos (it came with my computer so that is what I use). I crop the original, resize to 600X800 and convert to B&W, very quick process. Zero problems so far.

Here are a couple of examples:


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## srmalloy (Mar 3, 2009)

Jill75 said:


> Can I know what program you use to resize your pics? Thanks.


I use Corel's Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 for making my screensaver images, and I've got a stock set of steps that I use to convert images; if it weren't for the fact that tweaking the histogram for best visibility is a judgement call for each picture, I could set up a macro to do half the work. Basically, I go through the following steps:


Use the crop tool to remove any unwanted border from the image, so all it has is picture.
Resize the image to either 600w or 800h maintaining aspect ratio, depending on which one makes the other dimension at least as big as the Kindle's screen dimensions. For example, if I have a 1024x768 image, I'll resize it to 800 pixels high, which makes it 1067 pixels wide; if I have an 800x1100 image, I'll resize it to 600 pixels wide, which makes it 825 pixels high. If the dimensions are really close (i.e., when I scale the image I get something like 600x803, or 597x800), I'll turn 'maintain aspect ratio' off and just resize to 600x800.
Use the crop tool and define a 600x800 cropping window, then drag it around the image until I get the part of the image I want positioned in the crop window, then crop the image to the Kindle screen dimensions.
Convert the image to greyscale.
Here's where the judgement call comes in. Some images may lose definition when greyscaled, because of different colors coming out the same luminance (brightness), or the tonal range of the image may be narrow. I will generally start with the Histogram Stretch function to make sure that full white and full black are in the image, then if the image still looks a little dull I'll use the Histogram Manipulation function to stretch or compress the midtones and/or adjust the gamma to see whether it makes the image more visually appealing. Sometimes it doesn't, and I just leave it the way it is.
Force the image to the Kindle palette. I had opened one of the standard screensaver images in PSP and saved its palette (the mapping of colors/shades to color indexes in the image) to a file. I load this palette into my image, using error diffusion to map the greyscale shade to the Kindle palette. This dithers the image to the sixteen colors the Kindle displays, so that it avoids any problems with banding when it is displayed on the Kindle.
Save the image as a .PNG file.

I made up a Word document that goes through the steps with pictures, but it's 2.6 Mb with the images, and I need to find someplace to put it up online to link to.


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