Trying to get what I want from a computer. A battle with Windows 10 to get a picture displayed MY way.
23/8/2015
An account of how simply trying to take advantage of the option of
choosing my own picture for the lock screen of my computer turns into a
technical detective story.
A few of weeks back I bought a new desktop computer which was run by Windows 8.1, now "upgraded" to Windows 10. When I got it, in the process of vetting all the settings, I tried to set the picture at left as the Lock Screen, which appears when the inactivity timer kicks in and locks the machine. However, when I made the setting, my computer (un)helpfully corrected the picture to 16:9 aspect ratio by accepting the width but cutting off (rather inexplicably) both the top and bottom, producing the rubbish result at Left. To add insult to injury, the icon in the "Choose your picture" list actually shows more than the lock screen I was in a hurry, so I just checked the width of the image (a pretty lo-res 377 by 480 high) and calculated that at 16:9 I could do my own crop of a 212 pixel high section to show a better part of the picture, and use that The result, after a little session with the great freeware picture handler Irfanview, was something that would do, because it displayed intact, as shown at Left. Conclusion: 377 x 212 (= 16:9) is a size that works as a lock screen pic without system cropping it. Then, post the Windows 10 upgrade, I thought I would get to the bottom of what Microsoft had told my machine to do with my picture. I created a calibrating image 750 by 750 pixels marked with the width and height in pixels along the top and side. When selected as the Lock Screen, this 750 x 750 file was presented missing about 220 at bottom, 130 at top. 750 - 350 = 400 pixels high. The calibration numbers were clipped from the top edge. I fixed the calibration by putting the horizontal numbers across the middle of the picture as well, as shown at left. This revealed the picture was displaying with no horizontal loss. It appeared the software has been set to correct to 16:9, thus my 750 width would be 422 high which is not far from my 400 estimate, but why the asymmetric height crop? I decided to see what happens with a picture wider than high, and tried a panel I had saved _from a web-comic I like because of the drawing style, it reminds me of the war and western comics of my youth. The "Sarah Splits Up panel" image is 768 x 368. I created a work file "Sarah Splits Up panel resize for lock screen" by editing it to remove some black borders left in the image. If used raw, the ends are cropped. So to see if the image was too wide, I tried editing the file to retain its ratio, but resize it smaller to 750 wide = 355 high, saved as same file name. |
Now I re-select the file, but the crazy computer keeps showing the first edit, even if I first select five other images to bump it off the selection list of five. I have run into this before, the software has saved a copy somewhere and uses that, even though the original file has been edited. I know where desktop images are kept, at C:\Windows\Web\Wallpaper, but I have run a search before, and Windows is not telling where it keeps these Lock Screen files.
I have an Aha! moment and rename the new edit! "Sarah Splits Up panel resize for lock screen fool with rename.jpg"
This can be selected anew, and the software now loads the new edit to the lock screen.
What it does then is resize it bigger to 422 high and crop the RH end back to 750 from what would have been 892 at that resize. (422/355*750 = 892)
It is now apparent the software is insistent on making a 16:9 image from anything thrown at it
Conclusion:
Any size or resolution can be used, but the software will place a 16:9 box over it, then shrink or expand the picture until one dimension is fitted and the other overflows, then crop the overflow. (It appears to have some rules regarding whether to crop the overflow on one side; or on both sides either evenly or asymmetrically, but I can't be bothered going into that.)
There is no way it will render intact my pop queens picture, nor my comic panel.
On the web, using search term "windows 10 lock screen cropping" I found a solution of sorts at this forum: -
Get your picture on screen so all of it is showing to maximum size possible* then pressing the "Windows" key plus "prt sc" key dumps a "Screenshot.png" file to the C:\Users\[username]\Pictures\Screenshots folder. This picture is automatically the right size for a Lock Screen picture.
* I used Irfanview's fullscreen view, then zoomed with "+" key to biggest fit; this view has the uncovered area filled in non-distracting black (this background colour can be changed). There is still the filename in ASCII at the top, but otherwise this does the trick pretty well:-
I have an Aha! moment and rename the new edit! "Sarah Splits Up panel resize for lock screen fool with rename.jpg"
This can be selected anew, and the software now loads the new edit to the lock screen.
What it does then is resize it bigger to 422 high and crop the RH end back to 750 from what would have been 892 at that resize. (422/355*750 = 892)
It is now apparent the software is insistent on making a 16:9 image from anything thrown at it
Conclusion:
Any size or resolution can be used, but the software will place a 16:9 box over it, then shrink or expand the picture until one dimension is fitted and the other overflows, then crop the overflow. (It appears to have some rules regarding whether to crop the overflow on one side; or on both sides either evenly or asymmetrically, but I can't be bothered going into that.)
There is no way it will render intact my pop queens picture, nor my comic panel.
On the web, using search term "windows 10 lock screen cropping" I found a solution of sorts at this forum: -
Get your picture on screen so all of it is showing to maximum size possible* then pressing the "Windows" key plus "prt sc" key dumps a "Screenshot.png" file to the C:\Users\[username]\Pictures\Screenshots folder. This picture is automatically the right size for a Lock Screen picture.
* I used Irfanview's fullscreen view, then zoomed with "+" key to biggest fit; this view has the uncovered area filled in non-distracting black (this background colour can be changed). There is still the filename in ASCII at the top, but otherwise this does the trick pretty well:-
This picture at Left is presented on the Lock Screen completely uncropped. It is 1366 x 768, a lot bigger than the original that the software was cropping; this proves the cropping is purely by aspect ratio, not by size.
_ I was then able to use the same process on my pop queens picture to finally beat the computer and get my picture displayed by my computer the way I wanted it! A plaintive plea: I find it hard to believe how often this sort of problem arises, it seems so simple, yet I have found that there is little on the internet regarding it. Most people seem to have a hard enough time just asking if and how they can change the picture, ha-ha! It would appear I suffer from asking too many questions. You would think I would have learned at my age, but my philosophy is that you can't learn by NOT asking questions, can you? |