How to eliminate gray border, around pictures, in Windows 10

[engineerer]

I joined this forum,, because I was puzzled (and aggravated) that -- USUALLY -- Irfanview would put a gray border, roughly 1/8 inch (about 3 mm) thick, all the way around any picture it displayed . . . but, at other times (which I could not control, or figure out), that border would disappear, entirely.

That became a problem, since I wanted to be able to crop some all-time favorite pics, in ways that would totally and entirely fill my monitor screen, with no border; and, I could not do that, when a border was there, since the border has a consistent thickness, all the way around the screen, while my screen has (standard) 16x9 resolution.

After seeing some hints (mainly in this thread:

https://irfanview-forum.de/forum/program/bugreports/92101-incorrect-calculation-of-windows-space-in-windows-10

and after trying a few more things, I realized that the border will disappear, if and only if:

(1) when I first load Irfanview, and have it display a picture, I MUST maximize the Irfanview window, so that it will fill my entire screen, without the gray border that Windows 10 inserts, whenever some window is NOT fully maximized, to fill the entire screen; and,

(2) then, AFTER I have fully maximized Irfanview, in Windows 10, THAT is when I use the options in the "View" pulldown menu, to:
(a) hide the caption bar (Alt-Shift-C), and then,
(b) hide the menu bar (Alt-Shift-M)

[JendaLinda]

Why are you doing it so elaborately? Why not to crop your images just to the screen resolution? It would be displayed 1:1 without any borders in the IrfanView's fullscreen mode.

[engineerer]

In reply to:
Why are you doing it so elaborately? Why not to crop your images just to the screen resolution? It would be displayed 1:1 without any borders in the IrfanView's fullscreen mode.

Because I want to zoom in on -- and keep, in my personalized cropped version, of a picture -- just the "active" parts of the picture, which I want to fill the screen.
If I crop off the feet, and the empty/inactive/filler parts along either or both sides, the faces will look bigger, and usually happier, too . . .

And, the presence or absence of the specific borders I wanted to get rid of, is a Windows function, not an Irfanview function.
So, even an "Irfanview fullscreen mode" pic, sized to exactly fit my screen, will be displayed WITH borders
(i.e., the standard gray "Windows 10" 3/16 inch borders, on all sides), unless I turn off that border, in Windows.

[JendaLinda]

There are no borders in the full screen mode. Use the Enter key to toggle between he windowed mode and full screen mode.

[engineerer]

In reply to:

"There are no borders in the full screen mode."

That is correct; but, in full screen mode, two problems still remain:

(1) green lettering appears, with the file path and filename; and, I simply don't want to see that kind of stuff.
I just plain want to see my picture, filling the entire screen.

-- and --

(2) in full-screen mode -- at least, the way it is set up on my screen -- will center the picture,
based on whether the top and bottom edges (of the picture) bump into the top/bottom borders (of my screen) first,
or whether the side edges bump into the side borders (of my screen) first.
And -- unless I have previously cropped the picture, to fully fill the screen,
then either result will leave large black empty space, on either the sides of that pic, or above and below the pic.

That black empty space is what I want to get rid of.

And, I do it, by custom-cropping each pic, in my favorite collection of landscape-orientation pics.
And, when I do that custom-cropping, I do not want the Windows 10 gray borders, getting in my way.
Instead, I want to be able to crop a pic, without the borders being there,
so that when I finish, that picture truly, actually, really, seriously does FILL my ENTIRE screen. With no borders.

[JendaLinda]

So you rather view your pictures in the window with all the controls and stuff visible?

Options -> Properties/Settings -> Full screen/Slideshow
Here you can customize the full screen mode as you wish. You can hide the text and select different display modes.

[engineerer]

Maybe an example or two will help.
Here's a pic of Yosemite. I've been there, several times, and I watched "Free Solo", the movie about the guy who climbed El Capitan with no ropes.
Great pic, but -- as shown by this screen cap -- it simply does not fill a 16x9 computer monitor.
If I open it with Irfanview, and use full screen, there will be a large empty black bar, along the bottom.
So, I chose to crop it, by cutting off some of the right side edge, until it exactly fit my monitor.
But, I wanted to do that cropping task, while it had no gray "Windows 10" borders around it.
And, the initial goal of this thread, was simply to describe how to do THAT.

I don't know what picture host this board prefers, so I uploaded to Imagevenue, with a 300x300 thumb.
If you click on the thumb, you'll see the full-size pic (I hope . . .)

[JendaLinda]

The window border is part of the GUI, but you can do a precise crop regardless. You can use zoom in, zoom out, move the picture around in the window. Irfanview shows exact coordinates and dimensions of the selection in the window title, so you can make the selection the exact size of your screen.