12-19-2006, 11:09 AM

Hi everyone!

Does anyone know how to make stretched images set as desktop backgrounds less pixelly? I remember when I was using XP on my old pc if the image was smaller than the screen resolution the picture's pixelley edges would be antialiased but this doesn't happen in mac osx, is there a way to do this?

All the best
Simon

12-20-2006, 11:00 AM

If you're using an image that's not at least close to the resolution of your display, it's not going to look good.

Take a look at www.interfacelift.com and pick out a desktop picture that has the same resolution as your display.

12-23-2006, 05:43 PM

Oh I know about that, obviously a picture the same res as the screen will look better, but xp smooths out lower res images better than mac osx, was just wondering if there's a way of enlarging the picture with better antialiasing of the pixelly edges?

12-24-2006, 10:05 AM

Don't you find it odd then that XP's default desktop images are of a lower quality than OS X? Seems like MS wants you to feel like your crap ain't that bad.

12-24-2006, 04:21 PM

Here is a trick for increasing the size of images without heavy pixelization. Sometimes it works really well, sometimes only so so. I got this out of a Photoshop book some time ago.

First, you need an image editor of some sort - GIMP, Photoshop Elements, Photoshop itself, whatever.

Then, increase the size of the image 10% at at time. The first time you enlarge it, enlarge it only 10%. Then do it again, another 10%. Then again, another 10%. Repeat until you achieve the desired size. This 10% stepping achieves the size increase without as much pixelization as if you just did it one step.

If you are feeling adventurous, you can now improve on this even further with a smoothing filter of some sort. On Photoshop, the Dust and Scratches filter does a really nice job of this, allowing you to apply a controllable amount of smoothing to an image. In this case, you would use it to trade off sharpness vs. pixelation. When you are happy with the result, you can recover some of the original sharpness by using a light application of an Unsharp Mask filter.

Good luck!