Photos stretching too much in blob fields (Critical!!)

[catmic]

Hi,

We have photos of people in our SQL database. These photos can be any size (4 x 6, 6 x 4, 8 x 10). They are generated either by scanning or by digital camera.

I have a blob field created with corresponding text. However, sometimes the photo grows (CAN GROW is turned on) and a person's face, of course, becomes distorted. Unfortunately it looks as funny as a fair ground House of Mirrors.

Has anyone played with photos inside of Crystal Reports and prevented distortion? This has become a critical issue that we are trying to solved ASAP.

Any help would be very appreciated.

Cheers,
catmic

 

[Ngolem]

The only thing I can think of is to standardize your picture format in the database. It is a database problem more than a Crystal problem. Unfortunately "Can Grow" works only vertically ...there is no automatic sizing horizontally. Jim
JimBroadbent@Hotmail.com

 

[rhinok]

Jim's right, the first step is to standardize your picture format. Remember the golden rule of reporting is 'GIGO' - Garbage In, Garbage Out. You can't really blame Crystal if you don't have a standard format. My client had to go through the same excercise.

Outside of that, try experimenting with different drivers. I've had difficulties using blob pictures that were stored in an Oracle Database. The quality of the pictures was completely dependent on which driver I used (CR Oracle 8 ODBC, Oracle Native, Microsoft Oracle, etc...). BTW, the CR Oracle 8 ODBC Driver gave me the best results.

 

[catmic]

Hi,

Unfortunately we have limited control over how these photos come in to us and the database. Althought I will check into this further. Viewing the photos inside the database shows very clear photos without any distortion. Therefore, I'll try playing with the ODBC drivers to see if that helps at all.

Cheers,
catmic