Design your way

Friday, February 23, 2018

You don’t have to spend time on a computer with a generic Windows background. You need awesome wallpapers to make you feel great.

Your old desktop might be getting stale or that family picture might be clearly out of date.

Changing your PC wallpaper can be inspirational, helping you get new start on a project or simply give you a new reason to smile throughout the day.

An image of a planned vacation spot might give you a goal to work towards, or a photo of the great outdoors might help you remember to spend a bit more time outdoors every once and awhile.

Desktop customization also gives you a great chance to add a touch of personality to your office environment. It also gives you a chance to show off your 4K monitor (if you’re that lucky).

Whatever reason you have for changing your computer desktop backgrounds, have a few sources for images on hand. You may have to make a few tweaks to get the most out of these awesome wallpapers. Here are some tips and tricks to help you figure out how to make your desktop background look cool.

Awesome wallpapers for your desktop background

Checking Your Screen Settings

For the best looking PC wallpaper, make sure you use a desktop wallpaper with an aspect ratio that matches the aspect ratio of your screen. The aspect ratio of any rectangle is the proportion between its width and its height. The most common screen aspect ratios are 4:3, 16:9, and 16:10.

You also need to match a desktop wallpaper’s display resolution tot eh display resolution of your screen. If the computer wallpaper is too small, it will look blurry because it’s been stretched out to fill the screen. If the computer wallpaper is too large, it will look perfectly fine, but it will take up unnecessary disk space you can use for other things.

Finding an Image for Your Desktop Wallpaper

Choosing a desktop wallpaper is a personal choice. As the saying goes, there’s no accounting for taste. There are a lot of sites out there that offer high quality wallpaper, so a quick search for the image subject you’re looking for will yield up some good results. Don’t just rely on Google images, but click through links to wallpaper galleries and stock photo galleries.

Good desktop backgrounds will be high resolution, 1920 x 1080 or higher. A high resolution image can always be compressed and will still maintain its quality, but you can’t stretch an image out without losing quality very quickly.

Resizing or Cropping

If that awesome wallpaper doesn’t match your screen’s resolution, you’ll need to make some tweaks. If it already matches the screen, you’re good to go.

You should download and install GIMP before getting started if you don’t have another image editing app.

Resizing

If the desktop wallpaper’s aspect ratio already matches your screen’s aspect ratio, all you need to do to it is resize it. In GIMP, follow these steps to resize an image:

Open the image file.
In the menu, click Image > Scale Image…
Under Image Size, be sure that the chain icon is connected. If it isn’t, click on it to connect it. This will ensure that the aspect ratio will stay the same during the resize.
Change the Width to the width of your screen resolution, then hit Enter. The Height should automatically adjust and keep the same aspect ratio.
Click Scale.

Cropping

For images with a different aspect ratio than your screen, you will need to crop it to make sure it loosk good. Cropping will cut out parts of the image you don’t need. In GIMP, follow these steps to crop an image:

Open the image file.
Select the Crop tool in the toolbar.
In the Tool Options panel, check the box labeled Fixed and then select Aspect Ratio in the drop-down menu. Type in your aspect ratio (for example, 16:9).
Click-and-drag your mouse on the image to make a selection. Everything that is within the selection will stay, and everything that’s outside of the selection will be cut away. You can drag the selection box around if you need to.
Once the box looks right, double-click the selection box to finalize the crop.
Resize the image to your screen resolution.

Export the Image

Once you’ve resized and/or cropped the image to fit your screen, you can save it by clicking File > Export as… to save it as a JPG format for optimal file size or PNG format for optimal image quality. All you need to do from there is set the image as your new PC wallpaper.

Downloading Pre-Made Desktop Wallpapers

If you’d rather not mess around with an image editing program, that isn’t a problem. There are a ton of free, easy to find websites out here that offer cool desktops that can work for you. Check your screen resolution and aspect ratio before you search. A lot of these sites offer a search feature where you can filter for aspect ratio.

One of the cooler features of recent Windows updates is that you can customize a lot of elements of your PC. You can choose a photo for the desktop background, the lock screen, or the sign-in screen.

Centering

If there’s an image that seems perfect for your cool desktop but is still too small, consider centering it in the settings instead of having it stretched to fill the screen. Centering an image will create a framed or matted look for your desktop wallpaper. You can change the color of the framing as well. All of this can be accomplished in your desktop customization settings. There’s a preview window under settings so that you’re not flying blind.

This is an excellent choice for your desktop wallpaper if you want to use a family photo or other image you took yourself. Often these can be hard to modify quite right and with centering you won’t need to try.

Ending thoughts on this awesome wallpapers collection

Awesome wallpapers are a great way to add a personal touch to your PC. Windows has made desktop customization incredibly easy, and you should take the opportunity to show off some high quality wallpaper.

If you liked these awesome wallpapers, you should check out these as well:

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