Dummy Digital Frame resizing question

Hi, I admit I'm a complete layman when it comes to this, but here's
the deal: I bought my wife a digital frame for her birthday, I'm
setting up the pictures for the frame, a bunch of pictures I took with
the digital camera, they have to be down to a 480 pixel width (down
from a 2080 in the original size) so they will load quickly in the
frame (or so the directions say). I resize them in photoshop (and take
out some redeye) and load them in the frame, the problem is if it's
16x9, they're stretched of course and if I set it to 4:3, there's a
black boarder on the sides. What would be the correct resizing of the
pictures so they appear to be widescreen in the frame? I've tried
resizing them to widescreen proportions but it just creates a
widescreen picture with a boarder around it when I turn the frame on.
Any help is appreciated. Thanks. (the current pixel size is 480x356,
then I tried 720x480 and recropping)

oldbones55@hotmail.com wrote:
>frame (or so the directions say). I resize them in photoshop (and take
>out some redeye) and load them in the frame, the problem is if it's
>16x9, they're stretched of course and if I set it to 4:3, there's a
>black boarder on the sides. What would be the correct resizing of the
>pictures so they appear to be widescreen in the frame? I've tried
>resizing them to widescreen proportions but it just creates a
>widescreen picture with a boarder around it when I turn the frame on.

Obviously your photos and the photo frame have different aspect ratios.
This topic has been discussed many times over, you may want to check
DejaNews (aka Google Groups) for previous discussions.

In short: imagine the frame had a square display (this is exagerated,
but often exagerations help to make issues obvious). What would be the
correct resizing to fit the rectangular photo into the square frame?
Obviously there is none. And just the same there is none if the aspect
ratios are any different at all.

Basically you got 3 choices (*):
- adjust the size such that the picture fits horizontally: then you will
see the whole picture, but you will get those black letter box bars on
top and bottom.
- adjust the size such that the picture fits vertically: then you will
not see the whole picture because on either or both sides part of the
picture will be cropped
- distort the photo to make it fit horizontally and vertically, but that
will turn circles into ovals and make aunt Bess suffer from either
anorexia or obesity.

(*): the effects of the first two may be the other way round depending
on which aspect ratio you want to convert into which.

jue