Where Do You Go For Wallpapers?

Pretty pictures on the desktop

Wednesday, October 17, 2007 by Zoomba | Discussion: WinCustomize News

Wallpapers are an often overlooked piece of the user experience, as they're often covered by application windows, folders and icons.  But there's something to be said about finding the wallpaper that perfectly matches your skin and icon set, making for the ultimate theme.

Here at WinCustomize, we have a wallpaper gallery with thousands of wallpapers submitted over the years, some of them are absolutely fantastic too. But we know we're not THE destination on the net for wallpapers, there are dozens of sites out there with a better selection.  This is an issue we're going to be working hard to rectify in the future.

So, what I'm wondering is where do YOU go when you need to find a killer wallpaper?  What are your favorite sites that have the best selection of what you're looking for?  Toss a comment in on your favorite sites, and what your preferred type of wallpaper is (abstract, nature, photo etc).

While you ponder, here are a few of my all-time favorites from the wallpaper gallery here at WC:

69 Reply 21 Referrals
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ALMonty
Reply #41 Wednesday, October 17, 2007 11:28 PM
DesktopMachine WWW Link has Cars,Motorcycles,Movies & Celebrities. Every picture's resolution is :

1024x768
1152x864
1280x960
1280x1024
1600x1200
1280x800
1440x900
1680x1050
1920x1200

Frankief
Reply #42 Wednesday, October 17, 2007 11:48 PM
I like Caedes.net and Deviant Art if I can't find what I want here. I like really unique nature shots, usually with water but my favorite are snow scenes, but good ones are hard to find. I do abstract because it is what I excel at! I do use a lot of my own stuff.

SkagGully
Reply #43 Thursday, October 18, 2007 2:56 AM
Mainly deviantART, and then InterfaceLift and Vladstudio. I would include WC in my routine wallpaper browse if there was a way to browse or search for wallpapers of specific desktop resolutions because I don't wanna waste my time looking through everything on my quest for the rather rare 2560x1600 walls my 30" monitor requires. =p

Mackintosh
Reply #44 Thursday, October 18, 2007 4:50 AM
Interfacelift and Vladstudio, Interfacelift purely because they allow me to search via a specific resolution, whereas the system at WC makes finding the right resolution a royal PITA. I occasionally get some from DA as well, but DA's mostly hit and miss. I have to admit that in all my years on WC, I've only ever grabbed a handful of wallpapers from here.

Erk.
Reply #45 Thursday, October 18, 2007 4:57 AM

I use a mixture of some, or all of the above.

Picked up a few [previously] unknown [to me] links too...

Thanks, all, for your contributions to this thread ...keep 'em coming!


retiredmaster
Reply #46 Thursday, October 18, 2007 5:18 AM
(Heh - one of mine in your selection there Zoomba! I'm honoured. Thanks.)

WOM
Reply #47 Thursday, October 18, 2007 7:35 AM

I get 99% of mine here.

http://www.philipstraub.com/

Resize to fit my monitors as they are not really wallpapers.


MountainHawk
Reply #48 Thursday, October 18, 2007 6:49 PM
I have been coming in and out of Wincustomize for nearly six years. During that time I have seen the quality drop here plus the variation. There is a manner in the uploading process that deters wallpaper artists from uploading here. That is the fickle and unprofessional manner with which wallpapers are selected for upload by mods here. No other site I know of has the same procedure. Look at it from the artists point of view. They spend considerable time putting together a zip file with several sizes to get it rejected by some person in a mods position here who puts himself or herself in the position of deciding whether the end user is going to like it or not. How egotistical is that? Frankly I stopped uploading here a while back because I got sick and tired of mods allowing work through that clearly was their buddies work and rejecting my work. I am not saying I am the worlds best artist but nowhere else has my work been rejected....only here. And that does not mean that Wincustomize has the BEST walls because of its process. It is the opposite. The end result of the current process has been to reduce the number of uploads and to deter the artists. Counterproductive when you think that the applications sold by Stardock are enhanced by and go hand in hand with wallpapers. I would like to see Wincustomize change its attitude. I used to get my walls from DeviantART but gave up on that site and I now use Renderosity.com. Huge selection of some of the best quality work found anywhere on the net. My gallery is now there and I have never had an image rejected and all my work recieves five stars. It is Wincustomizes loss and its customers loss when it maintains the upload process it does.I would suggest Wincustomize thinks seriously about whether it is going to serve its own self interested clicques or its customers and end users, without which it would not be here nor will it survive if it continues in this manner. Wincustomize in one sense is shooting itself in the foot with its current policy and reducing its own potential to grow.

Philly0381
Reply #49 Thursday, October 18, 2007 7:47 PM
MountainHawk you are definately allowed to your opinion. There well maybe others who have the same opinion.

Having said that, there are alot of wallpapers in the library here at WinCustomize created by many different people. If you go through the forum here you will see that all wallpapers don't get accepted and those are questioned why. Even if rejected, if the skinner has set up their personal page here that's where it will go. Yes it's not in the main gallery, but if I'm looking for wallpapers, especially by a know skinner, I not only check the main gallery I go to their home page.

I don't think wallpapers get rejected because the mods here are fickle and definately not because they are unprofessional or because they only accept walls from the buddies. Don't really think Stardock would allow that.

Now this is my own opinion. Have a good evening.


The-Reaper-Man
Reply #50 Friday, October 19, 2007 1:10 AM
I enjoy going to a site called Interfacelift WWW Link. They have a great selection of widescreen wallpapers which is my preference due to the fact that I purchased a nice widescreen LCD monitor earlier this year: Flatron Wide by LG electronics, so I tend to try to get widescreen as much as possible. As far as what I prefer for the content on my wallpapers, there's a number of different things that agree with me but I guess my favorite would have to be abstract art. It seems to go well with most WindowBlind themes, however I believe photography, and in particular nature photography seems to suit any Vista based themes best, IMHO.

.-= The Reaper Man =-.

The-Reaper-Man
Reply #51 Friday, October 19, 2007 1:23 AM
[quote]
It would be great if the Wallpapers were also organised, as others have said, BY SIZE .. Pretty Please .. I use 1440x900 ..  

Personally, I prefer 1680x1050 as that's how I have my screen resolution set. But WinCustomize has next to nil for that resolution whereas Interfacelift has tons of wallpapers in that size.

MountainHawk
Reply #52 Friday, October 19, 2007 1:49 AM
I understand what you are saying Philly0381.However it still smacks of elitism to me and I know the staff have been challenged on it before. And I stand by my statement that the only result from this is that Wincustomize and its users lose due to the manner the wallpapers are managed and that it deters artists from uploading. It would be in Wincustomizes best interest for all concerned to change their procedure so it is more in line with other sites. It really does not bother me if I do not upload here nor if no-one ends up uploading here. I simply do not view their process as productive or encouraging.

scorpNZ
Reply #53 Friday, October 19, 2007 3:55 AM
There's one thing missing from your comments on rejected work "WHY",why was the work rejected i'm not interested in hearing why you think it was rejected just why the mod decided it was not to go up,well if i did some work that was refused i'd sure wanna know why then i'd also find out what the standard is coz it sure sounds like it was'nt up to it.

MountainHawk
Reply #54 Friday, October 19, 2007 4:23 AM
xscorpx......I agree with you entirely. On one occassion the mod replied to me the work was not good enough in his eyes. All the images had been uploaded on Skinbase at one point and ALL had recieved favourable download figures. I even sent a zip file of the images to Nikos(adni18) as he could not understand why my work was rejected. He saw the images as being of acceptable quality. I have submitted images here that have been featured works and they too have been rejected. I am happy for anyone here to go and look at my gallery at Renderosity.com. My work is favourably accepted there. It is the only site I patronise now.This is not new for Wincustomize. It has been a problem for a long time and I know others have had the same problem. The end result has been that these artists like me have ceased bothering to upload here.People cannot be bothered taking time to put together a zip file and then uploading it to get it rejected. That is just a total waste of time and effort. I do know those who continue uploading and accept the attrition rate. I am also aware some artists can upload anything and it gets accepted. Depends on who you are and whether you are with the elusive "IN" crowd. I am not in the business of needing to impress, I care little about ego and I certainly have no intention of kneeling before anyone. It would just be nice to upload here like anywhere else. It is no big drama for me. I just do not understand the site keeping such a negative method in operation. As for standard....I see none really. You can go through the wallpaper galleries here and see the inconsistencies. It speaks for itself. There are some very capable artists here but there are also some that simply hit a swirl button and call it a wallpaper and it passes to the main page....it simply makes no sense at all.

Fuzzy Logic
Reply #55 Friday, October 19, 2007 5:56 AM

This site changed its wallpaper policy a long time ago - shows how out of touch you are   The only rejections now are due to copyright infringement and items which are obviously too poor to grace any site. Some wallpapers which are not quite up to the standard of the main gallery go to personal pages where they can still be viewed and downloaded.

There has never been an 'in' crowd as you put it. Anyone showing favour to one artist over another would very quickly be shown the door.

If you want to continue this debate, why not start a new thread? This thread was supposed to be for people to post links to their favourite wallpaper sites


MountainHawk
Reply #56 Friday, October 19, 2007 10:36 AM
I am aware of what you are saying Fuzzy and I am aware that,as you say, those not quite up to standard go to the personal page,which is still a rejection of sorts. I beg to differ with you on the "in" crowd as favouritism is definitely shown as to who goes to the main page and whose work goes to their personal page. I can also say it has nothing to do with standard. I also suggest you are wrong about starting a fresh thread as Zoomba was saying he wanted to see Wincustomize draw back wallpaper uploaders and increase the selection here. I am simply giving my input. If you are not happy with what I am saying I can only share my experience here honestly.I do understand though that you do not want it discussed so I shall leave it as it is and bid you good wishes Fuzzy....enjoy yourselves!  ....I am sorry you are not open.

Fuzzy Logic
Reply #57 Friday, October 19, 2007 11:11 AM

I think you are twisting things a little. Perhaps you should upload something? The more people upload wallpapers the better the gallery will be   

I was suggesting a new thread if you wanted to discuss wallpaper moderation - all subjects are open for discussion here and welcome   


Jafo
Reply #58 Friday, October 19, 2007 11:44 AM

I am not saying I am the worlds best artist but nowhere else has my work been rejected....only here.

Since Wincustomize.com DOES have a moderation process...and others [such as Deviantart.com] do not....it's entirely logical that a person's works are not rejected elsewhere whereas they may do so here.

Not all wallpaper submissions have 'considerable time' spent...several even claim 'I was bored - mucking around - threw this together - etc'.

Any 'quality drop' perceived is due to relaxation of the moderation process ...to be MORE inline with those 'other' sites.... which may just say a lot for both ends of the moderation debate.

Regarding wallpapers and their gallery/modration there's been some thoughts kicked around as to how to vary/improve the methodology.

Perhaps WC2K8 ....

 


theleader
Reply #59 Friday, October 19, 2007 4:57 PM
DA a lot, www.skins.be and last but certainly not least:

www.dragonfly.sytes.net

MountainHawk
Reply #60 Friday, October 19, 2007 5:22 PM
Fuzzy, I am not twisting things. I would not say it was like it if it was not. As I said, I can only give you my experience. I am not the only one either. And Jafo.....good to see and hear from you! And yes, I understand what you are saying. I also still think things can be improved if what is in place is hindering this sites progress. That really is all I am saying. From what Zoomba was saying at the start it is this sites wish to improve things and I would certainly agree and support that intent.  

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