voeveo

What I want to know about is - - landscape, square and Portrait shapes of images. If someone buys a landscape image to go on a phone that really is better off with portrait shaped pictures - Is the image stretched or letterboxed.

So should I make images to suit landscape proportions and upload just for that size to be downloaded or should I make images of each ?
If I make them fit all types I could be all day uploading different versions.

Maybe a good way would be to do 1 off each shape -Portrait, square and landscape and then upload just the three and leave it set at all resolutions on the upload so the Voeveo software can size them up for the customer automatically??

Hi Spondicious,
Yes, every phone fits images to its own screen size, so this means that widescreen images will be letterboxed on certain phones. You are welcome to upload as many different image sizes as you wish, but the solution you have suggested (3 different sizes: Wide, Narrow and Square) is a popular one and works quite well. By setting all three to "all resolutions", the buyer will be given the option of which one they want, and as you said, our system will fit it to that mobiles optimum screen size.

We have often thought about adding some extra options to the resolution dropdown on the content upload page. these would include "All Square Resolutions", "All 3:4 Resolutions" and "All 4:3 Resolutions". Do you think this would be helpful?

yes that would be helpful

All all landscapes 4:3 ratio or will there be some that go wide screen ?

You're right, I think 4:3 might be a bit too specific. We'd be better offering something more general like "All Wide Resolutions" and "All Narrow Resolutions". It still wouldn't be an exact match for a lot of phones, but it means that it would at least default to the closest screen size, rather than give the buyer a choice of the three.

Hi. Have not posted any wallpapers yet because have been trying to figure out a streamlined process as well that would make them available for most phones. This is what I've come up with so far, including additional questions, and would also appreciate any ideas and suggestions:
1) From what I understand, graphics downloaded on phones are only cropped from top to bottom and never on the sides (leaving the iPhone out of it for now since it can orient either horizontally or vertically.) Is that true for graphics downloads here as well? Wondering because a lot of horizontal wallpapers aren't available for my phone (240x320 vertical screen) on this site. The messages say "It won't work on your phone - the file's too big or not the right type." so I'm not sure what exactly that refers to. Although my phone is available to download a wallpaper from here optimized for iPhone at 320x480 and why would files be any bigger than ones for the iPhone? (My phone can't actually receive downloads of any type from this site even if the format says it can, but that's another issue.)
ANYWAY: If it's true that for downloads from here that the cropping works as referred to above, then for 35mm aspect ratio this is what I've come up with so far:
Vertical Picture Resize from Full Frame 35mm dimensions 272x400, Lose top to Bottom:
240x320 (C 240x353) 9.3% of image
176x220 (C176x259) 15% of image
128x160 14.9% (C128x188) 14.9% of image
176x208 19.7% (C176x259) 19.7% of image
128x128 (C128x188) 32% of image

320x240 (C320x471) 49% of image
176x144 (C176x259) 44.4% of image
320x480 (C320x471) 2% of image
and for
Horizontal Picture Resize from Full Frame 35mm 272x400, Lose top to Bottom:
240x320 None
176x220 None
128x160 None
176x208 None
128x128 None
320x240 None
176x144 None
320x480 Apple iPhone - will flip to horizontal orientation

So for landscapes or other horizontal 35mm images, there would be generally lots of room top to bottom except for the almost full-frame iPhone with no cropping.
With verticals, there would be from 9-20% cropping on the top and bottom for 4 of the current top 5 phone sizes in the recent mobile resolution update from this site. The rest of them would have significant cropping.

Questions:
Is it correct that here graphics downloaded are cropped only top to bottom and never side to side?
If that's true, is the truncating done evenly top to bottom? For example, before sending to know what it would look like on different phones, if I knew I would lose 20% of the image on a particular phone, would it be 10% from the top and 10% from the bottom? Or would the phone be listed as unavailable if a certain amount of cropping would have to be done? If so, what are the guidelines?
For verticals, would it work for all graphics to be cropped at 480px on the longest side (height) and let the other dimension fall where it does to get best resolution on the phone with the highest resolution at this point (iPhone I guess) and still be able to be small enough to fit on the phones with the smallest resolution, or will that not work? We could then pick vertical images to upload taking into account the percentage of cropping that will take place on some phones. Or will they be listed on the site as unavailable if the screen orientation is horizontal?
For horizontal pictures there should be no problem using one size for all the phones with no cropping - but I still don't understand why a lot of them are listed as unavailable for my phone.

Thanks for reading and any replies would be very welcome! - C

Hi Pixie,
Thanks for that info, it should prove useful for our Image sellers.

There could be a number of reasons why you aren't able to buy certain pieces of image content. Some sellers specify a certain resolution for their wallpapers, meaning that its only available for that exact resolution, even if it looks like it would fit to your screen. Also, some devices have file size restrictions, which is based on the biggest MMS message they are able to receive in their specifications. Some networks also restrict the size or type of files we can send.

As far as cropping goes, we won't actually crop any images, we will only resize them. So nothing will ever be cut off your image, but it will be shrunk so that the whole picture is visible on a screen. For example, a wide screen image would appear as on a narrow screen phone in exactly the same proportions, only shrunk to the width of the screen with large black bars above and below it. It will generally appear in the middle of the view, but this can depend on the phones browser.

We also recommend that you upload large images, as although we shrink images, we never enlarge them, as this affects their quality. We currently have a maximum image size of 1MB, but this will be shrunk to fit the size of the buyers phone. Hypnoteis is a good example of this: all of his images are uploaded as very large files, and in one size only, with our system sizing them accordingly upon purchase.

And finally, I thought you both might be interested in our top 5 most popular resolution sizes for mobile, as listed in our Seller Toolkit:
* 240x320
* 176x220
* 128x160
* 176x208
* 128x128

Thank you MikeP for your informative reply! And the new Seller Toolkit is very helpful! Thank you! I can get downloads from another site on my phone. Have gotten a video of about 1MB and it downloaded fine - so I just don't know. It all seems sort of random, even though it isn't, maybe it's just complicated. I really don't know.

Do you size vertical images for horizontal or square phones with pillarboxes on the left and right sides? What size does Hypnoteis use for his images? I looked and only saw jpeg listed without dimensions. If the system does absolutely no cropping, just re-sizing and all pix are sent full-frame I really would prefer to send one large file if I knew it wouldn't be cropped at all and maybe sometimes an extra file to fit 240x320 specifically. It all depends on the image too. How do we specify for each piece of content, I want one-size fits all or I want to make it specific? Like if I send a 176x220 file that would mean I'm sending it just for that and if I send a 640x480 that means I want it for everything? Can I send a 400x500 full-frame of 4x5 film and want that to be re-sized for every shape screen?Thank you so much! - C

Hi Pixie, Thanks for all the great feedback btw. As mike says we resize all images if they are too big *and* if a specific resolution has *not been* specified by the seller.

So yes, it is possible to upload nice 'one size fits all' images by using nice big resolution images. The image will be fit to the screen of the phone and centered so that all the image is visible. This might mean bars on the left/right sides, or a widescreen kinda look with bars on top and bottom if the dimensions of the image do not match the specific ratio of the phone screen (hope that makes sense?).
For folks that want to fit exactly the resolution of the phone we have provided the capability to specify that during upload. Based on feedback like yours though, we will be implementing another approach that lets folks specify a more generic resolution setting like 'wide', 'narrow' or 'square'. This should help to further ensure a buyer gets the best possible option for their phone.

Hope that helps! Jeff

Thank you Jeff for clearing this up for me and your nice feedback! Look forward to uploading wallpapers when I can and now have a better idea of what to do! - C

Thanks all for helping out on this one

Since starting the thread I have gone with the 3 sizes to fit all solution.

As you can see in my portfolio I have uploaded a square version, a landscape version and a Portrait version of the images . It has worked very well in Illustrator. I have set up a template that has the 3 sizes on it with the crop area set for the 3 sizes too.
All I do is arrange the elements of my designs to suit the shape and then click export first for the Square and then afterwards for the other two. In Illustrator I export out 300x300 for square then 640x480 then 480 x 640
Works great for me.

Then when I am uploading I do each as for all resolutions.

Much less tedious than having one piece of content with 9 different versions