Where do you get your desktop artwork?

by
in ask on (#3M9)
Assuming everyone here is glued to the business end of a computer for most of the working day, you probably spend more time looking at your desktop than you do your kids :( So, where do you get your artwork? I was a big fan of Digital Blasphemy for many years, and actually I still do like Ryan's stuff. But there are so many good artists out there, and so many great sources of interesting images, from the abstract to the futuristic to the mundane. Where do you go to get interesting artwork?

[Ed note: Don't say 4chan. Please don't say 4chan.]
Reply 15 comments

Default (Score: 1)

by lhsi@pipedot.org on 2014-05-19 14:49 (#1QW)

The default background I have is the company logo with a fairly simplistic pattern. It looks fine. I usually have applications open so only really see it when starting/shutting down the computer.

You might want to clarify 'interesting' (Score: 1)

by harmless@pipedot.org on 2014-05-19 15:05 (#1QY)

If you are just looking for high resolution wallpapers, try a google search for "high resolution desktop wallpapers" .
The first hit is wallpaperswide.com and I actually like that site.
But since that is so easy to find, maybe you are looking for something special?

Re: You might want to clarify 'interesting' (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-05-19 16:15 (#1R5)

You can actually just search for "wallpapers" and then filter the results with google's advanced search features to only show you images with the exact resolution you set.

Re: You might want to clarify 'interesting' (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-05-20 04:58 (#1S0)

10ft x 30ft? Or are you just wallpapering a bathroom?

Re: You might want to clarify 'interesting' (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-05-20 05:26 (#1S2)

Excuse _ME_, I use _METRIC_ units, thank you very much.

Wallpaper switchers (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-05-19 16:20 (#1R7)

Don't forget that you can make it yourself. Plenty of stuff I found from random sources and downloaded straight to my "wallpapers" folder.

Does anyone know any cross-platform wallpaper switchers that aren't filled with crapware?

Wallpaper? On my desktop? (Score: 2, Interesting)

by zocalo@pipedot.org on 2014-05-19 16:41 (#1R9)

Never saw any need for it. Distracting, usually at least partially (and more often almost totally) obscured. I used to use a simple tiling pattern that sort of resembled leather, but in the end just switched to a plain greyish-blue that I switch to a neutral ~18% grey when I'm editing images or videos.

Re: Wallpaper? On my desktop? (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org on 2014-05-19 19:58 (#1RJ)

Pick a good plain color background. This used to be a much bigger issue when you had a 133Mhz CPU and 16MB of RAM, but performance is still important for low-end systems, like atom. Although your chosen photograph may be JPG, the desktop will likely have to store the full uncompressed 24 bit color data in memory. For 1920x1080 this is at least 6.22 MB of wasted RAM + enough memory bandwidth and CPU cycles to composite the image to the screen all day.

Browser, Run/Command Line, Applications (Score: 1, Interesting)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-05-19 19:05 (#1RF)

I really never see the desktop. Who does?

On a phone or tablet I end up returning to a home screen with cute animated wallpaper for fun and to pick the next "app". But it's completely unnecessary to make that intermediate stop on a real computer.

Re: Browser, Run/Command Line, Applications (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-05-20 05:24 (#1S1)

Well, I _do_ make that stop. Plenty of programs I open and never think to close until I have to minimize 35 other windows in front of vlc playing an annoying chiptune. _I_ also like to take a breather and look at a nice image instead of twelve _terminals_ of code.

IDEs are for the weak.

Reddit and Variety (Score: 1)

by esoterikism@pipedot.org on 2014-05-20 02:26 (#1RX)

reddit.com/r/wallpapers
reddit.com/r/earthporn

I was using Variety under Ubuntu to download and switch wallpapers automatically, but got sick of it. It's a nice program though.

Re: Reddit and Variety (Score: 1)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-05-20 09:15 (#1S4)

Earthporn is a good idea. There's some great earth porn type stuff on Google Plus these days, but I'm getting nauseous over the new trend for highly/over-saturated colors, pink skies, etc. Real life is good enough for me; don't need my artwork to all look like the onset of an acid trip.

Do it yourself (Score: 1)

by tempest@pipedot.org on 2014-05-20 13:46 (#1SJ)

I use screenshots from games I play. I may subdue the colors and blend it with a texture.

I make my own (Score: 1)

by kritonk@pipedot.org on 2014-05-21 07:21 (#1TA)

I use photographs that I take myself, and scans of old photos, taken from books.

As my desktop is usually cluttered with windows, the only time I get to see these images is when I boot the computer. Using an application that randomly selects a wallpaper at boot time, I get a nice surprise each morning.

stego (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-05-21 10:29 (#1TD)

can't trust any image from the net - especially from techies, can possibly contain stego messages, subliminals.