[willis]

A couple of weeks ago, my old Gateway 4:3 monitor suddenly died. Looking for one just like it proved to be much to time consuming and difficult. As such, I purchased a Samsung 20" widescreen monitor.

When I view photos that I have taken with my K10D, they appear just fine. It is when I want to place one of those photos as my desktop background that they look horrible - and I understand why.

I am trying to figure out if there is a way to take photos with my K10D so that they will fit perfectly on this monitor as a background photo. I have an older Canon P&S (Powershot A540) that lets me simply switch from 4:3 photos to 16:9 photos. Is there anything like this for my Pentax?

Thanks for any help!

[aleonx3]

A couple of weeks ago, my old Gateway 4:3 monitor suddenly died. Looking for one just like it proved to be much to time consuming and difficult. As such, I purchased a Samsung 20" widescreen monitor.

When I view photos that I have taken with my K10D, they appear just fine. It is when I want to place one of those photos as my desktop background that they look horrible - and I understand why.

I am trying to figure out if there is a way to take photos with my K10D so that they will fit perfectly on this monitor as a background photo. I have an older Canon P&S (Powershot A540) that lets me simply switch from 4:3 photos to 16:9 photos. Is there anything like this for my Pentax?

Thanks for any help!

Try cropping the picture to the same aspect ratio of your monitor - that way, it does not have to be stretched.

[RioRico]

I have an older Canon P&S (Powershot A540) that lets me simply switch from 4:3 photos to 16:9 photos. Is there anything like this for my Pentax?

In a word: no. Various P&S's allow shooting in different aspect ratios: 1:1, 2:3. 3:4, 16:9, 2:1, etc. Your K20D is a fairly advanced dSLR built in the tradition of old 35mm film cams, which only have the 2:3 aspect. To fit a 2:3 photo onto a different-aspect desktop without torturing it brutally (the Procrustean Bed syndrome), you must do a little PP editing. You have these options:

* Shrink the image to fit the monitor in one direction, then display it as-is, with no stretching.
* Shrink the image much smaller and have it displayed as a tiled matrix. Ugh.
* Crop the image to the same aspect ratio as the monitor. Lose an edge or two.
* Letterbox the image - create a background layer of the monitor's aspect, then put your image on top of that and save the combination. Now it displays correctly.
* OR: Shoot abstractions such that stretching and torturing won't be noticed.

I wonder if there's software for running the background/desktop as a slideshow, with options for displaying pictures resized but unstretched? I don't pay much attention to such warez, but I'd be surprised if such didn't exist. Gargle for DESKTOP OR BACKGROUND SLIDESHOW and maybe you'll find something. Good luck!

[Canada_Rockies]

In the desktop settings on your computer, there should be three options: Tile, stretch and center. Use the center version, then work on resizing the image to be what you want it to look like. I do this whenever I get bored with my latest and greatest shot that PPG has rejected, but I like anyway. My monitor is 1400x1050 pixels, so I work with those settings in Lightroom.

[Pentaxie]

I do agree with aleonx3 suggestion of cropping your picture to match with your new monitor. Believe me, it is not easy changing from a 4:3 to another format.

To answer the OP question, NO such thing in Pentax.
The K20D is an advanced dSLR which has the 2:3 aspect. To fit a 2:3 photo onto a different-aspect desktop without any adjustment/modification on its sizes, you will not get your desired results.

You must do a wee post processing by either shrinking the image to fit the monitor in one direction, then display it as it is, OR crop the image to the same aspect ratio as the monitor. (as propounded by aleonx3)

Cheers.

[willis]

Great. Thanks for all the answers guys.

I've since changed the setting on the Canon P&S that my wife uses and the pictures fit perfect. The suggestion about using the "center" setting for pictures from my K10 works...but...it sucks that my awesome picture taking, dust removing, true manual setting , multiple lens using camera that took me a few paychecks to pay for won't allow me to do what my $100 Canon PofS will.

[pbo]

I've since changed the setting on the Canon P&S that my wife uses and the pictures fit perfect. The suggestion about using the "center" setting for pictures from my K10 works...but...it sucks that my awesome picture taking, dust removing, true manual setting , multiple lens using camera that took me a few paychecks to pay for won't allow me to do what my $100 Canon PofS will.

It would be quite challenging to shoot in aspect other than 3:2 unless someone makes a focusing screen with guidelines for other crop ratios - or unless you have really really good spatial memory and can remember where the cutoff is when looking in the viewfinder.
Look at the bright side - 4x6 prints fit perfectly

[Marc Sabatella]

I've since changed the setting on the Canon P&S that my wife uses and the pictures fit perfect. The suggestion about using the "center" setting for pictures from my K10 works...but...it sucks that my awesome picture taking, dust removing, true manual setting , multiple lens using camera that took me a few paychecks to pay for won't allow me to do what my $100 Canon PofS will.

The Canon is not performing magic here. It's just taking the picture and cropping it before bothering to show it to you first - not giving you any control about how it crops the picture. it jsut throws away part of the icture, no questions asked. A DSLR won't generally do that, true - but you should be lookng on that as a *good* thing, because it means *you* get decide how to crop the picture. In other words, it *is* allowing you to do what your Canon does - but it's making *you* do the cropping yourself rather than presuming to throw away parts of your picture without giving you any input (whcih is precisely what your Canon is doing).