for anyone with the same problem, I add a border until the photo is larger than 1600x2650, at which point you can see the entire photo on the screen, as shown here:
This is one of the dumbest things I deal with on the pixel, although there are a lot of dumb things with this phone.
OP below:
ever since I got the pixel, one of the most frustrating non-Functionalities has been that I have to manually screenshot any picture that I want to make into a wallpaper background because my Google pixel 6 enlarges by about 3x any photo, I choose to make my wallpaper background and cannot make the picture smaller by pinching it smaller.
but now even if I save a screenshot, it blows it up more than 3x and I have to manually add a giant border around the picture in an external app so that the picture itself is much smaller if I want to see the entire picture on my phone wallpaper.
is this just some shitty thing with my phone or do all pixels do this?
I just tried with a Pixel, and it gives me a cropping frame to select which part of a photo to use as wallpaper. Works fine.
I don't know the Pixel's screen resolution, but that's the key. You can only use so much of a photo as wallpaper, it needs to match the resolution.
What app are you using to set the wallpaper?
dang.
so if you screenshot a picture, you don't have to resize it afterwards, it works perfectly?
because mine blows up any screenshot huge and like you say, I have to crop out most of the picture, leading me to add huge borders manually if I want the full picture as my wallpaper.
Try doing it from the gallery, pick your image, then 3-dot menu, Set As, choose Wallpaper, it gives you a cropping box. Works perfectly for me, so far.
Edit: On some phones the cropping box isn't obvious - you grab the image and drag it around within the preview space.
That second photo in the previous comment is the preview pane and cropping tool you're taking about, unfortunately.
however i enter the wallpaper app, either through three dots, use as, wallpaper, or through the home screen long tap process i described, the preview pane pops up with a massively oversized picture that I'm allowed to crop but not resize.
Looks like my pixel had something wrong with its wallpaper app.
at least the border trick works.
i did ask about this on reddit a couple years ago and had a few people respond with the same issue, so it seems like some crappo software some of us are stuck with.
I don't want to factory reset the phone over this glitch, given how many other pixel bugs probably won't be fixed anyway even after the hassle of a reset.
it's bizarre, but I'm glad that it isn't affecting you or others.
pixel 6 screenres is 2400x1080, pic is 1080x1445, and I can only crop out most of the picture, I can't minimize it all within the wallpaper app.
that seems like such a crazy basic non-functionality.
Pixel screenres is 2400x1080, my pic is 803x1075.
I'm long-pressing the home screen, clicking wallpaper&style, scroll down, more wallpapers, my photos, then the folder and then this picture.
instantly is blown up to about 2x my screen capacity and i have to crop out part of the picture. no resize allowed.
That looks normal. It just cuts off the sides because the screen is narrower than the image. If you want to fit the complete picture and add letterboxes, you'll have to edit it manually by adding height to the image
That blowup is of an edited image, so both the horizontal and vertical are smaller than the screen resolution of the pixel 6.
so it takes the photo that is smaller than the screen, blows it up to 2x, then cuts off the sides, top and bottom
It isn't fitting the picture to either vertical or horizontal parameter and won't allow resize.
Resizing a wallpaper is such a basic function, not having pinch and zoom seems pretty lazy or a bug.
Do you also have to manually add borders for your wallpapers?
other pixel users are saying they don't have the same oversize no-resize problem, so you might be in the same boat as I am.