If you have never seen a digital photo frame working, your first impression may be that they show digital photos one at a time until the end of time or there is a power cut. Well your right they do, but with a lot more style and controls than you would expect. Some are more like portable computers and multimedia centres than picture frames. Ultimately their main purpose is to show off your digital photos.
This article is intended to give you an idea of what general types of features you would find on an average digital photo frame, also known as a digital picture frame. Cheaper unbranded frames will probably have a basic set of features while the top of the range branded frames will have lots of features to make your life easier or more confusing.
Digital photo frames use the same memory cards that are used in digital cameras. The most widely supported type is the SD cards with newer frames supporting the high capacity SDHC cards. Multi Media Cards (MMC) and combinations of the Memory Stick, MS Pro and MS Duo cards are also well supported with xD and CF cards supported to a lesser degree.
More information here www.digislides.co.uk
Most digital photo frames have internal memory allowing you to store photos in the frame itself, freeing up your memory card. Though in most cases you will be better off buying a memory card to run your slide shows from, as the internal memory is quite often small compared to the capacities of memory cards.
To manage your photos the photo frame will have options to copy and move photos between internal memory and memory cards. Photos can also be deleted. On top of this you may be able to create folders which can hold different slide show collections allowing you to change the photos to whatever mood you’re in by selecting a different folder.
To get started you will need to choose where you photos are stored, on a memory card or internal memory. You can then show all your photos as a slide show or select, also known as mark, only some photos to be shown and create slide show play lists. At this point you can start your slide show with the standard settings and enjoy your snaps. Alternately you can delve into your options menu and set-up various ways of displaying your photos.
Here you will find the following types of options:
Transition Effects: this is what effect should be used to change one photo into the next. This can be a gradual fade or dissolve or the new photo slides in from the one side and off in the opposite direction. The next photo may be shown through stripes or a checker board effect or various wipe effects. If your undecided then choose random then at each transition a different effect is shown.
Collage or Tile effect: this is an option where the display is separated in to square or rectangle regions, each region displays a different photo which is then sequentially updated with a new photo.
Delay: this adjusts how long a photo stays on the display before the next photo appears. This can be from a few seconds to several hours. Some frames will just have the options short, medium, long which may range from 5 seconds to 1 minute.
Aspect Ratio: this is to change the display between stand size (4:3) and wide screen (16:9).
Digital photos will generally suit the stand size unless you have a panoramic or wide view camera then wide screen will be more suitable.
More information here www.digislides.co.uk
Fit to Screen, Full screen: This option is dependent on the aspect ratio of the digital photo frame and the photo being displayed. Fit to screen will stretch and squash your photo to fill the whole of the display. On landscape photos this will not be too noticeable but for portraits this will be more noticeable. Full screen will zoom into the image until the whole of the display has been filled though this will mean that parts of the photo will be out of view or cropped. Wide screen images will have the sides cropped and standard screen will have the top and bottom cropped. If neither fit to screen or full screen is used then the unused areas will be filled with black boarders.
Auto Rotate: when this option is used, photos that have been taken in portrait are rotated so they show correctly. This only works for photos taken on cameras that store the orientation in jpeg exif data. If no Exif data is available then the photo will be show as landscape.
Colour, Contrast & Brightness are all adjustable to suit your taste.
Clock, Calendar and Alarm: these options speak for themselves but along with the clock or calendar a picture or slide show can be displayed.
Auto off: this option sets how long a slide show will be shown before the digital photo frame switches off.
Saturday, 11 December 2010
Sunday, 21 November 2010
Digital Photo Frame Buyers Guide
Get a slide show for your Digital Photo Frame or give them as a gift.
Digislides.co.uk has several stunning slide show collections for digital photo frames at pocket money prices. Collections such as landscapes, flowers and cute animals make a pleasant change from your personal snaps and also make a great gift idea.
Digislides.co.uk has several stunning slide show collections for digital photo frames at pocket money prices. Collections such as landscapes, flowers and cute animals make a pleasant change from your personal snaps and also make a great gift idea.
Digital Photo Frame Buyers Guide
Digital photo frames, also known as digital picture frames, are more common and affordable allowing you to display your digital photos which were previously hidden away on your computer. The hardest part is searching through folders for those perfect pictures amongst the countless blurred and badly lit photos in your collection, or is that just me.
Once you have your finest moments set aside, you will then need a good quality digital photo frame to do your photos justice. As with all electronics advertising, there is jargon, specifications and box waffle to decode before you make your choice. This article will help to explain what some of these terms mean and how they affect your viewing experience.
Display
The most common screen used with digital photo frames is the LCD display as they are widely used and cheap to make in comparison to other types of display. The down side is in the way that LCD displays work, which means they are unable to display such a wide range of colours as other types of display. This means that black will be dark grey and white will be off white. Some manufacturers are using new techniques to make black darker which is why you may see statements like “True Black” in the advertising.
Resolution
One of the prominent features of photo frame is the display size. As with a traditional photo frame, this is usually measured in inches. Though it will probably be a key factor in your decision as to which frame you choose, it tells you nothing about the level of detail your photos will be shown in. For that you need to look at the resolution, measured in pixels in the format width x height.
Computerised displays are made up of tiny elements known as pixels. Each tiny pixel can only display one colour at a time. So to reproduce your grinning face, you will need hundreds of thousands of pixels. Basically the more pixels that are squeezed into a digital photo frame, the more detail will be shown.
For example, 7 inch photo frames commonly have a resolution of 480 pixels wide by 234 pixels high or 800 pixels wide by 480 pixels high. The lower resolution frame has 271,680 pixels less
to recreate your stunning features. Along with the loss of detail the pixel size of the 480 x 234 frame will be nearly 67% bigger than the 800 x 600 frame giving the photo more of a blocky mosaic affect about it. So it is important to buy a digital photo frame with the highest resolution for your budget.
Aspect Ratio
The aspect ratio describes how many pixels there are horizontally to how many vertically.
For this you would expect to see aspect ratio of 4:3, 3:2 or 16:9. An aspect ratio of 4:3 means that for every 4 pixels horizontally there will be 3 vertically. If you were watching a TV 4:3 would be considered standard screen and 16:9 would be wide screen.
As most digital cameras have an aspect ratio of 4:3 or 3:2, having a digital picture frame with an aspect ratio of 16:9 is not necessary. As the majority of photo frames support the 16:9 format the chances are you will get one anyway.
When the photo frame displays a 4:3 or 3:2 photo on a 16:9 display the photo will be stretched or cropped to fill the screen or there will be black borders at the sides of your photo. There will usually be a setting available to select how the frame deals with photos that don't fill the screen.
Examples of the effect of aspect ratio on your photos can be found at www.digislides.co.uk
Contrast Ratio
Contrast Ratio is a measurement of how bright white is represented compared to black. This is shown as 300:1 which means white is 300 times brighter than black. In theory, you would be looking for a digital picture frame with a higher contrast ratio so the detail in shadows and bright areas of your photos are not lost. In reality, different manufacturers make this measurement in different ways and conditions. So you may as well ignore the contrast ratio when comparing digital picture frames.
Brightness
Brightness is a measurement of how bright the LCD display is, bizarrely enough. This is measured in cd/m2 (candela per metre square) or Nits which is equal to 1 cd/m2. For LCD displays this is typically between 250 and 350 cd/m2. The brightness of a display is important if you are going to position your digital photo frame in a well lit location as a lower cd/m2 rating will mean your photos will be barely visible. If you are using the frame in a darker location then the brightness is less important as you may even want to turn the brightness down.
The other consideration is the life of your photo frame. The more a LCD display is used the dimmer it will get. The life is usually stated in hours for example 20,000 hours. This means that after 20,000 hours or 2.3 years of constant use the brightness will be half as bright as it was when new.
Taking this into account it would be better to get a brighter frame and turn the brightness down and therefore extend the usefulness of the display.
Viewing Angle
If you are in front of a LCD display now move your head left to right and up and down. As you move further from the center of the screen the colours and contrast change. This is the effect of the viewing angle. A display with a good viewing angle is one that lets you move further before the image is degraded. As a digital photo frame would be viewed across a room, you would want the viewing angle to be as wide as possible.
The viewing angle is shown something like Horizontal 120 Vertical 90. What this means is if you are looking straight at the display you can move 60 degrees left or right and 45 degrees up or down before the image degrades. The vertical angle is usually the narrowest angle but can cause the most problems with where to locate your frame.
Imagine you put your frame on a cabinet resting on it's stand. Instantly the frame is tilted back by 20 or 30 degrees. You now go and sit on your sofa which is a lot lower than the height of your cabinet. You have just put yourself outside the vertical viewing angle and loose any chance of seeing your wonderful photos in glorious technicolor. So you do need to consider where you wish to locate your frame and find one with a suitable viewing angle. That's when you realise the power lead is too short.
Once you have your finest moments set aside, you will then need a good quality digital photo frame to do your photos justice. As with all electronics advertising, there is jargon, specifications and box waffle to decode before you make your choice. This article will help to explain what some of these terms mean and how they affect your viewing experience.
Display
The most common screen used with digital photo frames is the LCD display as they are widely used and cheap to make in comparison to other types of display. The down side is in the way that LCD displays work, which means they are unable to display such a wide range of colours as other types of display. This means that black will be dark grey and white will be off white. Some manufacturers are using new techniques to make black darker which is why you may see statements like “True Black” in the advertising.
Resolution
One of the prominent features of photo frame is the display size. As with a traditional photo frame, this is usually measured in inches. Though it will probably be a key factor in your decision as to which frame you choose, it tells you nothing about the level of detail your photos will be shown in. For that you need to look at the resolution, measured in pixels in the format width x height.
Computerised displays are made up of tiny elements known as pixels. Each tiny pixel can only display one colour at a time. So to reproduce your grinning face, you will need hundreds of thousands of pixels. Basically the more pixels that are squeezed into a digital photo frame, the more detail will be shown.
For example, 7 inch photo frames commonly have a resolution of 480 pixels wide by 234 pixels high or 800 pixels wide by 480 pixels high. The lower resolution frame has 271,680 pixels less
to recreate your stunning features. Along with the loss of detail the pixel size of the 480 x 234 frame will be nearly 67% bigger than the 800 x 600 frame giving the photo more of a blocky mosaic affect about it. So it is important to buy a digital photo frame with the highest resolution for your budget.
Aspect Ratio
The aspect ratio describes how many pixels there are horizontally to how many vertically.
For this you would expect to see aspect ratio of 4:3, 3:2 or 16:9. An aspect ratio of 4:3 means that for every 4 pixels horizontally there will be 3 vertically. If you were watching a TV 4:3 would be considered standard screen and 16:9 would be wide screen.
As most digital cameras have an aspect ratio of 4:3 or 3:2, having a digital picture frame with an aspect ratio of 16:9 is not necessary. As the majority of photo frames support the 16:9 format the chances are you will get one anyway.
When the photo frame displays a 4:3 or 3:2 photo on a 16:9 display the photo will be stretched or cropped to fill the screen or there will be black borders at the sides of your photo. There will usually be a setting available to select how the frame deals with photos that don't fill the screen.
Examples of the effect of aspect ratio on your photos can be found at www.digislides.co.uk
Contrast Ratio
Contrast Ratio is a measurement of how bright white is represented compared to black. This is shown as 300:1 which means white is 300 times brighter than black. In theory, you would be looking for a digital picture frame with a higher contrast ratio so the detail in shadows and bright areas of your photos are not lost. In reality, different manufacturers make this measurement in different ways and conditions. So you may as well ignore the contrast ratio when comparing digital picture frames.
Brightness
Brightness is a measurement of how bright the LCD display is, bizarrely enough. This is measured in cd/m2 (candela per metre square) or Nits which is equal to 1 cd/m2. For LCD displays this is typically between 250 and 350 cd/m2. The brightness of a display is important if you are going to position your digital photo frame in a well lit location as a lower cd/m2 rating will mean your photos will be barely visible. If you are using the frame in a darker location then the brightness is less important as you may even want to turn the brightness down.
The other consideration is the life of your photo frame. The more a LCD display is used the dimmer it will get. The life is usually stated in hours for example 20,000 hours. This means that after 20,000 hours or 2.3 years of constant use the brightness will be half as bright as it was when new.
Taking this into account it would be better to get a brighter frame and turn the brightness down and therefore extend the usefulness of the display.
Viewing Angle
If you are in front of a LCD display now move your head left to right and up and down. As you move further from the center of the screen the colours and contrast change. This is the effect of the viewing angle. A display with a good viewing angle is one that lets you move further before the image is degraded. As a digital photo frame would be viewed across a room, you would want the viewing angle to be as wide as possible.
The viewing angle is shown something like Horizontal 120 Vertical 90. What this means is if you are looking straight at the display you can move 60 degrees left or right and 45 degrees up or down before the image degrades. The vertical angle is usually the narrowest angle but can cause the most problems with where to locate your frame.
Imagine you put your frame on a cabinet resting on it's stand. Instantly the frame is tilted back by 20 or 30 degrees. You now go and sit on your sofa which is a lot lower than the height of your cabinet. You have just put yourself outside the vertical viewing angle and loose any chance of seeing your wonderful photos in glorious technicolor. So you do need to consider where you wish to locate your frame and find one with a suitable viewing angle. That's when you realise the power lead is too short.
More information here
See specifications of popular photo frames in the photo frame section of my site at www.digislides.co.uk. You will also find a more detailed buyers guide section.
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