Picture doesn't fit on Desktop Background

[matruski]

Does anyone know how to get panoramic pictures or tall pictures to fit on the desktop background? I don't want to resize them, and lose quality, I just want them to fit the picture and put black bars on the sides or top and bottom. All the options in system preferences just distort the pictures or end up lopping off the sides or tops.

Are there any third party programs or Mac OS X tweaks anyone knows of to give users that option. It bugs the crap out of me.

 

[speakerwizard]

shouldnt 'center' do that?

 

[Doctor Q]

Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but none of the choices seems right for what I usually want:

Fill screen - scales until the image is as tall or wide as the screen, leaving the other dimension larger than the screen, i.e., truncated.

Stretch to fill screen - distorts the image unless it's exactly the screen's aspect ratio.

Center - leaves small images small; does not scale.

Tile - repeats the image.​

What I want is a choice that scales so the image is as tall or wide as the screen, leaving the other dimension smaller than the screen. I don't know why "Fill screen" doesn't do that.

When I get desperate enough, I use an image editor to resize an image to the correct aspect ratio myself, so that "Fill screen" will do the right thing, or I scale it myself and use "Center".

 

[matruski]

Dr. Q knows what I mean

"center" does not do it because most pictures are formatted bigger than what the screen puts out, so if you center it, it looks like it has zoomed in on the picture to the center spot and cuts off everything else. If you do "fit to screen" it just stretches the picture, cutting of at least one of the sides, or it distorts it completely.

 

[mfacey]

yeah that's quite annoying. Windows has always been able to do this 😡

I just resize it in PS or Graphic Converter to the exact size I need. Its still just an extra and rather unnecessary step though.

 

[GodBless]

Automator can resize images to a percentage or a specific pixel size.

To do this follow the following steps:
1. Open the Application Automator.app.
2. Make sure that the "Applications" folder is selected in the left column of Automator.
3. Type "Get Specified Finder Items" in the upper left box of Automator to search for the action.
4. Drag the action "Get Specified Finder Items" to the right side of the screen where it says "Drag or add actions here to build your workflow.".
5. Now search for "Scale Images" in the top left box of the Automator Application and select the "Scale Images" action.
6. Drag the "Scale Images" action to the right side of the automator under the "Get Specified Finder Items" action.
7. I'd recommend clicking the "Add" button if a dialogue box appears so that your original image isn't replaced with this smaller inferior one that Automator will create. I do recommend however having a back-up copy of your own (of the image) available in case automator fails to make a copy of the image. I think Automator may have overwritten a picture of mine once or twice even though I told it to make a copy with the "Copy Finder Items" added action.
8. Press the plus button on step one (which should be "Get Specified Finder Actions") of your workflow (the workflow is the list of actions that you put on the right side of Automator) and browse for your picture and select "Open".
9. On step 2 of your workflow tell automator where you want it to save the scaled picture ("Desktop" should be the default location).
10. On step 3 of your workflow tell Automator if you want it to scale your image "By Percentage" or "To Size (pixels)" and type in the number for the percentage or the pixels.
11. Press the "Run" icon (a triangle in a circle--it looks like a standard video "play" button) in Automator.

This should make your new picture just the way you want it and put it in the location that you told Automator to put it in step 2 of your workflow.

I've used this type of workflow at least twice so it might be a good one to save and use in the future. I hope this helps. 🙂

 

[mfacey]

Automator can resize images to a percentage or a specific pixel size.

To do this follow the following steps:

<steps>

This should make your new picture just the way you want it and put it in the location that you told Automator to put it in step 2 of your workflow.

I've used this type of workflow at least twice so it might be a good one to save and use in the future. I hope this helps. 🙂

Unless you're planning on resizing large numbers of pictures, its probably quicker to just load the picture in your everyday image editor and resize from there.

 

[GodBless]

Unless you're planning on resizing large numbers of pictures, its probably quicker to just load the picture in your everyday image editor and resize from there.

Automator is fast and easy to use once you know how to use it. I don't own Photoshop (yet) although I've used it quite a bit and I can easily resize images with it but for something like this I think Automator would be faster even for people who are Photoshop experts (probably even if those Photoshop experts aren't even Automator experts--like me).

 

[djejrejk]

yeah that's quite annoying. Windows has always been able to do this 😡

I just resize it in PS or Graphic Converter to the exact size I need. Its still just an extra and rather unnecessary step though.

Maybe you should switch back to pc 🙄

 

[matruski]

you can't spell crap without pc

It is extremely annoying. It seems like a no brainer. Someone should write an add-in that would do it automatically. Does anyone know somebody without a social life?