FrameCopy
FrameCopy is a simple tool for preparing images for a digital photo frame.
A digital photo frame is a device that shows pictures. They typically look like a regular picture frame, but have a place to insert a memory card (MMC, CF, SD, etc) and they show the pictures that are on the memory card. While I refer to this as a tool for digital photo frames, it’s equally useful for converting your pictures for showing on a cell phone, PDA, PSP, or any other device that can show photos.
FrameCopy lets you enter a source folder, a destination folder (typically the memory card that you’re going to put into the photo frame), and a resolution. The resolution should be the actual resolution of the photo frame.
When you press Copy Files Now, all of the files in the source folder (and subfolders, if you’ve checked the Include All Subfolders checkbox) will be resampled to fit into the chosen size and copied to the destination folder, preserving the directory structure and filenames of the original images.
Typical digital camera photos are 2, 3, 4, or more megapixels; digital photo frames don’t have nearly this resolution. If you have a 128 meg memory card, you’ll fit less than 100 3-megapixel or higher photos on it. Since the frame is an LCD screen with a fixed resolution, having larger images on it doesn’t make them look any better, so converting the images to exactly match the frame’s resolution will let you store a lot more pictures. For example, with a 480×360 resolution frame, you can fit over 10,000 images onto the same 128mb memory card.
I bought a Centrios 7″ Digital Photo Frame from The Source (Radio Shack in the US) and found that it has one peculiar limitation. The default mode you get when you turn it on shows the photos using an incorrect aspect ratio. FrameCopy has a checkbox that, when checked, will correct the aspect ratio as it resizes the images for the frame.
Download: FrameCopySetup.msi
I’ve released FrameCopy as freeware, although if you find it useful and are the giving sort, I’ve included a PayPal donation button below. Thanks!