In my recipe database I have on tab for the recipe and one tab for the picture. For some of the recipes there are interim pictures showing steps of preparation. I thought about using repetitions, it seems there is not a lot of control over the screen layout. If I select 10 repetitions there are going to be either 10 "slots" down or across. I tried searching for some options but came up empty. Is there a trick I am missing?

You can use the "Data" pane of the inspector palette to specify that a layout object for a repeating field be based on any range of repetitions — one layout object doesn't have to show all repetitions of the field. This gives you much more layout flexibility. For example, you could break-up your 10 repetitions into one layout field object showing repetitions 1-5 in a top row, and another showing 6-10 in a bottom row.

That said, for your application I would store pictures of intermediate steps in non-repeating container fields in separate records in a related table. That way, you can have as many or as few as you want without having to modify your schema. You can get a lot of display flexibility by displaying the related records in portals and using the feature to start different portals to the same table (occurrence) on different record numbers. You could repeat the two-row pattern I described above for repeating fields by creating 10 single-row portals (scrollbars turned off), each starting on a different record number, and arranging those into whatever configuration you want.

it seems there is not a lot of control over the screen layout. If I select 10 repetitions there are going to be either 10 "slots" down or across.

No matter what you use to store the images, the number of "slots" shown on the layout is going to be constant. You could make the unfilled slots invisible, or use a small number of them and have buttons to "page" through the groups.

For a more flexible display, consider using a web viewer.

Thanks for the additional ideas