gallery [1] column question/issue

i am trying to upload a gallery and use the “1” column selection and I am wondering a couple of things. since my images are all 948 pixels wide, is there any way they can take up the full space of the screen instead of being chopped down to thumbnails? my impression was that the galleries were adjusting to the width of the real estate anyways dependent on how many columns I selected (two would fill up, three would fill up, four would fill up etc) so this seems a bit odd to have the 1 column gallery be as wide as what appears to be a three column gallery.

also, is there a reason why clicking on the images of a 1 column width gallery won’t bring up the full size image?

thanks.