[Wheatfield]

Photoptimist, You are correct that a square would totally ruin a panorama but, so too does a 4:3 display. The only display that can adequately display a panorama is...16:9, which brings us back to my original figures. It is plain to see that no one aspect ratio screen can do justice to 4:3, 3:2, 1:1 and 16:9 images. As such I feel that a square is a better alternative for the first three and the latter as a compromise for the first three and absolutely necessary for panoramas and widescreen video content.

Rather than use fillers etc. for Powerpoint presentations, which are not usually confined to photo only displays, wouldn't it be easier to just place images in any grid on a divided screen, in any direction, regardless of their orientation or aspect ratio? I am merely trying to solve the same problem that the makers of photo art books and photo albums face, only electronically on a digital display. In fact, my design mirrors the view offered in a photo album. What is viewed as "wasted pixels" on a display screen is considered normal in a photo album as the result of the album page that is viewable between photographs.

---------- Post added 02-03-18 at 10:38 AM ----------



It must be quite a chore to rotate your monitor for every image that does not match the screen orientation just to maintain consistent image size. Seems like a rather cumbersome way to view a slideshow in an age where images can be rotated with the click of a mouse and resized with a click and drag. I don't want to sound flippant but, wouldn't watching a slideshow on two differently oriented monitors be a little like watching a tennis match?

Fair enough. Why not just buy a large enough monitor that you can give up the real estate on the sides when displaying verticals?

[BigMackCam]

I am not sure how to take a poll on this forum but it would be helpful. My problem from the beginning is that some people automatically assume that I am trying to advocate for replacing conventional displays with square ones. This could not be further from my intent. My wish is to facilitate the creation of what I think is missing from digital photography, a standalone viewer that treats all images the same, can access images in cloud storage and be used separately from a computer or tablet.

If you need help structuring a poll here on PentaxForums, Sal, PM me and I'll do my best to help. That said, I think you might be better off using one of the free survey tools on the web and publishing the link in a number of forums web sites. You'll get a wider and more useful response if you target multiple communities, I think.

Wording of the survey and choice of questions will be key, as you don't want to have to ask for everyone's input more than once. In particular, I think it's important to clearly state the problem you're trying to solve, your solution, and why it's the best approach (in your view). If I was putting together the survey, the first thing I'd want to understand is whether people agree there's a problem, and if it's enough of a problem to justify purchasing a solution. That precedes anything about what the proposed solution is and how it will work.

[MarkJerling]

If you need help structuring a poll here on PentaxForums, Sal, PM me and I'll do my best to help. That said, I think you might be better off using one of the free survey tools on the web and publishing the link in a number of forums web sites. You'll get a wider and more useful response if you target multiple communities, I think.

Wording of the survey and choice of questions will be key, as you don't want to have to ask for everyone's input more than once. In particular, I think it's important to clearly state the problem you're trying to solve, your solution, and why it's the best approach (in your view). If I was putting together the survey, the first thing I'd want to understand is whether people agree there's a problem, and if it's enough of a problem to justify purchasing a solution. That precedes anything about what the proposed solution is and how it will work.

I'd start even more basic than that:
First question: Would you buy a digital photo frame?
Second question: If you said "yes" to the first question, would you prefer a square digital photo frame or a rectangular digital photo frame?
Third question: If you said "no" to the first question, would you change your mind if the digital photo frame was square rather than rectangular?

[Sal R]

Fair enough. Why not just buy a large enough monitor that you can give up the real estate on the sides when displaying verticals?

Thanks for the suggestion but, I'm not interested in adding more real estate to the sides with a larger display, that won't change the size disparity between compositions. Adding 25% more real estate to a 4:3 display to make it 1:1, however, would provide the extra headroom needed for images to rotate freely, maintaining consistent image size. It seems to make more sense to apply minor masking to both images rather than view one composition full screen and drastically masking the other, much smaller image. It should be clear that 16:9 widescreen displays are necessary for video content but not ideal for photographs because of the relatively large difference between its height and width. The remaining aspect ratio screens, 4:3, are for all practical purposes obsolete. They are not wide enough for the newer video format and offer no advantage at all for viewing photographs.

[normhead]

Thanks for the suggestion but, I'm not interested in adding more real estate to the sides with a larger display,

Of course a square display would give up real estate on either the sides for a portrait display or the top and bottom for a landscape display. Really the only thing it wouldn't give up real estate for would be a square image. So with three possible displays, any one o them is giving up real estate on two of the three formats. Despite your protestations promoting equality, there can be no equality. It's more a matter of choosing the format you think would be most useful. Whatever format you choose, it's images are going to be bigger than the other two.

I have very few square images, that would be the biggest on a square screen.
I have a few more portrait images.
The vast majority of my images are landscape.
Hence my acceptance of landscape screens.

The notion that one format will display all three images just hasn't been thought through.

Any screen is going to favour images in it's native shape in terms of presenting the largest images of a given picture. What you are talking about here is reducing the size of my most used formats landscape[e and portrait, in favour of square images. Based on my own production of images, that would be crazy. My 3:2 screen is completely in sync with the 3:2 and gives me the best chance to display the way my camera takes images at the largest possible size, in the landscape format that is by far my most used configuration.

Going to a square screen, the screen would maximized for my least used configuration. It doesn't matter how you spin it, I wouldn't see that as a good thing.

[Wheatfield]

Thanks for the suggestion but, I'm not interested in adding more real estate to the sides with a larger display, that won't change the size disparity between compositions. Adding 25% more real estate to a 4:3 display to make it 1:1, however, would provide the extra headroom needed for images to rotate freely, maintaining consistent image size. It seems to make more sense to apply minor masking to both images rather than view one composition full screen and drastically masking the other, much smaller image. It should be clear that 16:9 widescreen displays are necessary for video content but not ideal for photographs because of the relatively large difference between its height and width. The remaining aspect ratio screens, 4:3, are for all practical purposes obsolete. They are not wide enough for the newer video format and offer no advantage at all for viewing photographs.

Well then, what is the economy of scale that would entice a manufacturer to build something that would be bought by a statistically non existent market segment?
It seems to me that it would make more sense to do what you want via canvas size and image size on the canvas. That way you could have a virtual screen size that is square on the 16x9 format.

[Sal R]

Well then, what is the economy of scale that would entice a manufacturer to build something that would be bought by a statistically non existent market segment?
It seems to me that it would make more sense to do what you want via canvas size and image size on the canvas. That way you could have a virtual screen size that is square on the 16x9 format.

I thought I could convince photographers that a display that didn't favor one composition over another based on its orientation was a better option. I thought that the idea of finally being able to view a slideshow of same-sized images would be welcomed. I thought by balancing out the way masking was handled on current asymmetrical screens, which is feast or famine, either no masking of a large image or major masking of a much smaller image, that minor masking of all images to maintain consistent image size was a good compromise. I thought that it might actually create a market because it is unique from all other displays in the way that it processes photographs for display. The fact that it had to be accomplished on a square shaped display didn't bother me at all. I've shot and printed from square negatives and rarely were the final prints square, most were rectangular prints cropped out of the square negative, in any aspect ratio or orientation you wanted. I've viewed many a conventional slideshow. The setup was an ordeal but, once you opened the screen, to at least square proportions, and centered the projector lens on the screen you just breezed your way through a presentation of same-size slides, with masking provided automatically by the slide mount. I even own a Mamiya RB67 medium format camera that shot rectangular images. The body was too bulky to rotate easily, so to switch from vertical to horizontal shots you merely rotated the film back instead of the camera. Since the negative was rectangular and rotated to boot, the waist level finder was square to accommodate both compositions. I don't know why using a square display seems to cause so many people so much grief. Using a rectangular display that is only right half of the time is like the broken clock that is accurate twice a day. You know its going to be right at some time, you just don't know when. Sometimes you just have to replace the clock. I don't understand why, now that 4:3 video has been replaced by widescreen and can be shown on a widescreen, is it still the aspect ratio of choice for photo viewers. Maybe because there is no other choice available.

[normhead]

I thought I could convince photographers that a display that didn't favor one composition over another based on its orientation was a better option.

I guess you didn't even read my post. Here, I'll make it simple.

The best use of real estate in a square monitor is a square image. For landscape and portrait it's not as good with wasted real estate in both.

Where is this monitor the doesn't favour any image?

The goal here should be to favour the shape of image you use most.

[MarkJerling]

Sal, I hope you don't mind - I've created a quick poll that will run for one week. See Digital photo frame quick poll - PentaxForums.com

[BigMackCam]

I thought I could convince photographers that a display that didn't favor one composition over another based on its orientation was a better option. I thought that the idea of finally being able to view a slideshow of same-sized images would be welcomed. I thought by balancing out the way masking was handled on current asymmetrical screens, which is feast or famine, either no masking of a large image or major masking of a much smaller image, that minor masking of all images to maintain consistent image size was a good compromise. I thought that it might actually create a market because it is unique from all other displays in the way that it processes photographs for display.
...
I don't know why using a square display seems to cause so many people so much grief.

I don't think the square display idea is causing anyone grief, Sal, and I don't believe anyone wishes to pour cold water on your idea. Understandably, you're emotionally invested in this, because it's your brain child and you've worked hard on the concept. We're looking at this from a consumer perspective, so we ask ourselves, would we spend money on a product like this?

Those who've responded in this thread so far don't apparently see a significant problem with current viewing platforms... or, at least, not enough of a problem to warrant a dedicated product which - at best - seems very much a compromise for viewing images in the most popular aspect ratios. We all understand that your proposed solution allows equal size viewing of both landscape and portrait images of the same aspect ratio, but we also see that there is still wasted space for anything other than square format photos (whether there's a bit more or less of it isn't really an issue). Unfortunately, the vast majority of images we produce aren't square format, so there will usually be wasted space for most viewed images. Effectively, you'd be equalising the inefficiency with which they are displayed. I believe you see that as a minor compromise in order to have equal size viewing for portrait and landscape, but I think it's a bigger issue than you give credit for.

A unique and well-conceived product in a market crying out for a solution stands some chance of success. In this case, I don't believe many people are all that troubled by the problem you've identified (even if they recognise it exists), so they're not crying out for a solution. That suggests to me that you have a very hard sell in front of you.

All of the above said, this is a single forum of primarily amateur photographers (though we do have a number of professionals here too). Market research over a wider sample group will give you better measurement of interest in your idea.

EDIT: I see my colleague and fellow forum member @MarkJerling has kindly set up a poll for you. That will let you harvest feedback from PentaxForums members, and whilst we're not necessarily representative of the entire photographic market, we have a good cross section of photographer types here

[SpecialK]

We all understand that your proposed solution allows equal size viewing of both landscape and portrait images of the same aspect ratio, but we also see that there is still wasted space for anything other than square format photos (whether there's a bit more or less of it isn't really an issue). Unfortunately, the vast majority of images we produce aren't square format, so there will usually be wasted space for most viewed images. Effectively, you'd be equalising the inefficiency with which they are displayed. I believe you see that as a minor compromise in order to have equal size viewing for portrait and landscape, but I think it's a bigger issue than you give credit for.

So, what is the issue? I would have bought a square frame when I was shopping for one. "Wasted space" is of zero consequence in that decision. I also do not care that there are black bars on some TV programs.

[BigMackCam]

So, what is the issue? I would have bought a square frame when I was shopping for one. "Wasted space" is of zero consequence in that decision. I also do not care that there are black bars on some TV programs.

That's great! Then please vote in the poll that @MarkJerling has set up. Honestly, I would love for Sal's idea to gain traction...

[Sal R]

I guess you didn't even read my post. Here, I'll make it simple.

The best use of real estate in a square monitor is a square image. For landscape and portrait it's not as good with wasted real estate in both.

Where is this monitor the doesn't favour any image?

The goal here should be to favour the shape of image you use most.

Sorry, I got occupied after my last post.

Let me try to explain the image equality versus pick a favorite orientation and let 'er ride method. For simplicity, assume a fixed horizontal 4:3 aspect ratio, 9"X12", 108 sq. in. display. To alter its shape from 4:3 to 4:4 or 1:1 square, you have to increase its height by 25% to 12"X12". By doing this a 3:2, 8"X12" photo will fit in both directions, as will a 4:3, 9"X12" and 1:1, 12"X12" photo. This allows room for the longest side of any photo, regardless of orientation, or aspect ratio to fill the screen edge-to-edge in one direction and as far as possible in the other, determined by the image aspect ratio. An added benefit of the square is that it can be divided equally into grids for a 4 image page view, a 36 image film roll view and a 144 image thumbnail view. Images can be placed in any order within the grids, regardless of orientation or aspect ratio. Since current displays cannot be divided equally like the square, size differences between orientations are unavoidable when they are used to view a mix of orientations.

I think there should be two screen aspect ratios available, 16:9 widescreen for video and multipurpose use and square for photos.

[Wheatfield]

Square displays are only a niche market because no one has ever suggested that they be used for improved photographic viewers. If Digital Photo Frame manufacturers suddenly changed the format of their screens to square to eliminate the image size disparity issue, would the market be any less niche? If display manufacturers had a market for square displays they would gladly make them.A square photo viewer would be at least as popular as e-readers. There are more photo enthusiasts than avid readers, particularly now that there is camera on nearly every smartphone.

Sal, photographic viewers are, themselves, a niche product. I don't know a single person who has one, for example. In a perfect world, everyone would be able to buy whatever they wanted for whatever they could afford. Sadly, it is not a perfect world, and what you are asking for here is, from a sales, marketing and manufacturing point of view, a product with an infinitesimally small potential market. It is the outlier product of outlier products.
It is most certainly not an economically viable product.
It is a solution to an almost non existent problem that can be solved at very low cost with off the shelf components.

[SpecialK]

I thought I could convince photographers that a display that didn't favor one composition over another based on its orientation was a better option.

It appears almost everyone is thinking "computer monitor", not a stand-alone photo-frame hanging on the wall or sitting on a shelf.