Hacks Kindle 2 Picture Help?

[berklee46]

I'm hoping someone can help me since Amazon customer service offered me nothing...

The pre-loaded screen savers in my Kindle 2 look fantastic, but any photos that I add end up looking terrible. They seemed to look much better on my Kindle 1.

The pictures have these splotchy shadow looking things all over it and not at all crisp like the pre-loaded screen savers. I've tried using large size .jpg files, small ones, color, black & white, 800x600, etc., but all seem to look the same. It also doesn't matter if I have the dithering option on or off on the Kindle. I've attached a screenshot of one of the pictures that really shows off what I'm talking about.




Can anybody offer me some help on how to fix this? I'm sure it's a picture file issue since the screensaver pictures look fine.

Thanks for any advice.

[daffy4u]

Do you mind attaching the original image file so we can play with it?

[berklee46]

Sure, I left it as a relatively large file so you can edit it as you see fit, thanks.

[daffy4u]

I forgot to tell you that she's a very cute little girl!

I saved the 5 MB jpeg and made 600x800 jpeg and png files from it (no other adjustments). I then used all the images (orginal, jpeg and png) files to make a photo album with MobiPocekt Creator (I did not load the images as screen savers but the results are similar except for the border around the images).

I'm attaching the photo album along with screen shots of how all 3 versions of image looked on my K2. All of the images look good to me, No splotchiness.

[Ervserver]

that kid is way too cute for a Kindle

[berklee46]

Here are 4 photos of pictures as they appear on my Kindle. The first is a picture that someone on another board spent a lot of time editing and said appeared great on his Kindle. The last three I edited to 600x800 and made to greyscale in Photoshop on my own.

I still think something isn't quite right. The blotches never looked like this on my Kindle 1...

Does it seem like a hardware issue or just me expecting too much?

[daffy4u]

Well, I didn't do anything to the grayscale. I only reduced the size. I even install color images "as is" (except for size) on my Kindle. I don't convert them to grayscale.

[JSWolf]

I did try this photo on my 505 and it looked fine. It looked similar to what Daffy posted. I too have not converted it to gray scale. But maybe if you did, it might look better?

[wallcraft]

Based on what is in this thread, screensavers are processed differently from standard images. This makes sense in a way, because the standard screensavers are stored in system storage some where and there is no reason to re-process them every time they come up.

I see that with the screen saver hack you get copies of the standard screen saver images. What format (size, color/grey scales) do the standard screen savers use?

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

Based on what is in this thread, screensavers are processed differently from standard images. This makes sense in a way, because the standard screensavers are stored in system storage some where and there is no reason to re-process them every time they come up.

I see that with the screen saver hack you get copies of the standard screen saver images. What format (size, color/grey scales) do the standard screen savers use?

It looks like that only works for people who are using the hack for the first time. I installed .0.04 over v0.03 and it did not add the original screensavers to my "screen_saver" directory.

If someone else doesn't come along with the info, I'll remove mine and start from scratch to see if this can be figured out.

[clarknova]

Originally Posted by berklee46

I still think something isn't quite right. The blotches never looked like this on my Kindle 1...

Does it seem like a hardware issue or just me expecting too much?

I agree, this photo renders very blotchy and poorly dithered on my K2 as well, and enabling/disabling dithering appears to do absolutely nothing?!

Simply resizing didn't help it on mine either. I had to actually go into photoshop, resize it, and then manually dither it by using "Save for Web & Devices..." and manually loading the K2 15 (well, 16 with two whites) color table (attached). After this, then the photo rendered as expected.

[daffy4u]

Here is a zip file of the original images.

[clarknova]

Originally Posted by daffy4u

It looks like that only works for people who are using the hack for the first time. I installed .0.04 over v0.03 and it did not add the original screensavers to my "screen_saver" directory.

That's OK, that's how it's supposed to work. Since you have .04 loaded, if you want to get a copy of the originals, simply delete or rename your current screen_saver directory and reset the kindle. When the kindle comes back up, it will create the screen_saver directory with the originals in it.

Apologies to OP for off topic post.

[berklee46]

Originally Posted by clarknova

I agree, this photo renders very blotchy and poorly dithered on my K2 as well, and enabling/disabling dithering appears to do absolutely nothing?!

Simply resizing didn't help it on mine either. I had to actually go into photoshop, resize it, and then manually dither it by using "Save for Web & Devices..." and manually loading the K2 15 (well, 16 with two whites) color table (attached). After this, then the photo rendered as expected.

(Edit - I just figured out how to use the Kindle color table and will play around with that and see how it goes...)

Thanks again for all the help. I apologize for all the questions. I'm just hoping to eventually use my own photos as screensavers, but can't see wasting my time doing it if they are going to look terrible!

[JSWolf]

They aren't screensavers as eink has no burn-in. These should be called battery wasters. 8-}