Too Low Resolution Backgrounds

[Pascal de Bruijn]

The backgrounds currently included are too low resolution.

* 1600x1200
* 1600x1000

When displaying these background on higher resolution devices it looks stretched and ugly!

Considering (also) supplying these sizes:
* 1920×1200
* 1680x1050

The following has also been suggested:
* 2560x1600

[Daniel Holbach (dholbach)]

Jeff - what do you think?

[Tom Veens (tomveens)]

Good Idea!

[ki4gmb (ki4gmb)]

I agree very much. Especially when i get my new 20'' LCD, I'll want something that fits. I should actually start working on some wallpapers and size them accordingly.

[Greg Lawler (greg-zinkwazi)]

i am working on some hi-res images to contribute.
browse around my blog and see if there are any "must have" bacground images that you'd like to see included.
http://www.zinkwazi.com/blog/index.php?x=browse&category=4

greg

[Karoliina Salminen (karoliina-t-salminen)]

Cool. Yes, it is downside of most distributions and also other operating systems that the background images
are usually supplied with a crappy resolution.

I am using 23 inch Apple Cinema HD Display at work and will soon be using 30 inch Dell 3007WFP at home (as soon as it arrives from Dell, placed the order few days ago). Therefore for the resolutions I use, the default 1600x1200 is low. The resolutions are 1920x1200 for the Apple and 2560x1600 for the Dell respectively. My usual fix for the issue has been to use my own background image with some photograph from my collection, but it would be cool if the distro could also take bigger displays (23, 24, 30 inch LCD) in account since some
people (despite not being the majority just yet) are using these high resolution displays these days, at least in Finland. At work, most are using either the lower mentioned resolution; 1680x1050 or the 1920x1200 resolution on Ubuntu - the widescreen 1680x1050 looks like being some standard type LCD monitor.

Greg, your images look very nice and artistic, a lot better than what I have accomplished. My photographs are available as source images if needed from my gallery too, http://www.katix.org/gallery2 . However, while being high resolution, they aren't really deliberately artistic photographs but rather documentation pictures I am taking of flight trips, places, things etc. and due to the huge amount of them (I have tens of thousands of pictures on my harddrive and still quite many hundreds in the web gallery), I have had no time to perfect them, they are basically direct jpg output from the camera. I provided the link basically if someone wants to work on them and do artwork derived from them, you are free to do so, I have licensed them as Creative Commons license which allows non-commercial derivative works. By digging through my galleries, it is possible to find some nature landscapes from Lappland of Finland and there are couple of shots I consider being okayish.

[Daniel Holbach (dholbach)]

Targetting to Feisty - where we can reevaluate.

[Albi (dark-hero2k)]

Perhaps some SVG backgrounds can be included to solve this problem?

On 12/1/06, Daniel Holbach <email address hidden> wrote:
>
> Targetting to Feisty - where we can reevaluate.
>
> ** Changed in: ubuntu-artwork (Ubuntu)
> Sourcepackagename: ubuntu-artwork => feisty-wallpapers
> Assignee: Jeff Waugh => Ubuntu Artwork Team
>
> --
> Too Low Resolution Backgrounds
> https://launchpad.net/bugs/43350
>

[Troy James Sobotka (troy-sobotka)]

We should probably address the default wallpaper first. Hopefully the author will get this message and offer up an SVG equivalent, as it should be quite easy to address.

On a side note, Daniel, we should consider having a method to automatically set the 'Zoom' gconf setting for widescreen modes to prevent the need to upload specific widescreen versions of a wallpaper.

Is this a possibility?

[Daniel Holbach (dholbach)]

Troy: I think that's what already happens:

  <wallpaper>
    <_name>Simple Ubuntu</_name>
    <filename>/usr/share/backgrounds/warty-final-ubuntu.png</filename>
    <options>zoom</options>
    <pcolor>#dab082</pcolor>
    <scolor>#dab082</scolor>
    <shade_type>solid</shade_type>
  </wallpaper>
  <wallpaper>
    <_name>Ubuntu Smooth Chocolate</_name>
    <filename>/usr/share/backgrounds/ubuntu-smooth-chocolate.png</filename>
    <options>zoom</options>
    <pcolor>#2c160a</pcolor>
    <scolor>#2c160a</scolor>
    <shade_type>solid</shade_type>
  </wallpaper>

[Troy James Sobotka (troy-sobotka)]

Good. I didn't know if those changes got kaiboshed or not.

Needless to say, we still need A. to SVG ize the default wallpaper. -- or -- optionally -- wait until the machinations of sab-inc finish up with Feisty art / design work. That said, I sincerely doubt that Cliff uses Inkscape (which is about the only pureblood application that will render properly using Gnome's libs) and therefore it will pose a problem with rendering.

I pushed for SVG a while back, but got quashed. Should we proceed?

[Troy James Sobotka (troy-sobotka)]

This bug is largely surrounding resolution of background images -- so I have merged a bug thread that deals with multi-head resolutions.

At the very least -- Feisty should provide at least ONE SVG background to accommodate all of these issues. I realize this isn't optimal for the users of such setups and extremely high resolution monitors, but it is at least a step in the proper direction and would address _all_ of the issues we see in this thread and the other merged bug report.

The SVG issue will probably be addressed by the artwork community at large before the official default package as the artwork is handled by sabdfl, and he wasn't too keen on SVG during Edgy. Perhaps his opinion has shifted somewhat during the course of Ubuntu? sabdfl?

That said, the community that is subscribed to this bug would gladly help you if we can get some solid aspect ratio issues out of the way.

If you folks out there with multi-head support enabled could offer up some of your aspect ratios, it would be most helpful. HD is irrelevant as it is roughly 16:9 -- close enough to our dual format targets -- 4:5 and 16:10 (4:5 accomodates 4:3 etc, and 16:10 accomodates 16:9)

For example, as a user who is not entirely familiar with Linux multi-head:

 1) It appears your image is spread across all desktops. Is this an option? Can you set a secondary image (IE take two smaller images) and set each display independently?

 2) When you set the 'zoom' parameter on the wallpaper setting, does it properly take into account both monitors? Use a test image to experiment if you can (Attached a sample.)

Anyone who can take the time to accomplish this will would be greatly appreciated. I know that the community of artists at large would love to support your displays, so please take the time.

Once again, it will probably take more effort to affect the default installation of Ubuntu -- but we need to start somewhere. Thank you all for your time.

ATTENTION ARTISTS: Anyone out there with solid SVG skills who could possibly take up an experiment to generate the current default wallpaper in SVG format please step up. Inkscape is the preferred tool as it will assure you a reasonable level of compatibility with the GNOME SVG rendering libs. As a general rule -- if it thumbnails properly it will render properly. Thank you.

[Johan Kiviniemi (ion)]

> If you folks out there with multi-head support enabled could offer up some of your aspect ratios, it would be most helpful.

It's simply (2*x):y for two equivalent monitors side-by-side, e.g. two 4:3 monitors → 8:3.

> 4:5 accomodates 4:3 etc, and 16:10 accomodates 16:9

Well, with the zoom setting, *any* single ratio pretty much accomodates *all* monitors.

> It appears your image is spread across all desktops. Is this an option? Can you set a secondary image (IE take two smaller images) and set each display independently?

Personally i definitely prefer scaling a single image to all displays, as it works currently (versus having to choose separate images for each screen or having the same image on all screens).

> When you set the 'zoom' parameter on the wallpaper setting, does it properly take into account both monitors?

Yes, at least with Xinerama (or equivalent, e.g. MergedFB/TwinView).

[James (chiisu81)]

Over 6 months since a comment or such was made. Is anything being done, for Feisty or Gutsy regarding higher-resolution backgrounds?

[Pascal de Bruijn (pmjdebruijn)]

I just checked Lucid, and most wallpapers are 1920 x something, so I think this bug can be closed...