What's the best way to display a full width image uncropped?

At the moment I seem to have two options...

1. Use the image inside a row, so it appears uncropped but doesn't extend to the left and right hand sides of the window.

or

2. Use the image as a row background, but I either have to put in a divider to artificially create a set height, or set it to full height which doesn't always suit the proportion of the image.

Any ideas?

I have a simple image designed to fill thew with of the screen, but it doesn't;t work if it is cropped at all, I want it to scale according to the whole window's width.

There are examples of the sort of thing I mean here:

http://www.erretres.com/portfolio/tai/