Do wallpapers have to be BMP?

Friday, March 7, 2008 by RickyMaveety | Discussion: Wallpapers

I could have sworn I downloaded some that were PNG, but the upload information says (or seems to say) that you are supposed to zip up your wallpaper as a BMP.

I'm wondering because I'm under the impression that PNG is lossless and it takes up a lot less space than a BMP.

Anyone know for sure??

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ZubaZ
Reply #1 Friday, March 7, 2008 11:29 AM
You should not upload bitmaps (even though the form says so).
You should use jpg.  It's the standard (and smaller than a png).

RickyMaveety
Reply #2 Friday, March 7, 2008 11:40 AM
Anyone ever think about changing the form?? Or am I the only person that has ever been confused by this?

messiah1
Reply #3 Friday, March 7, 2008 11:46 AM
Or am I the only person that has ever been confused by this?


No

ZubaZ
Reply #4 Friday, March 7, 2008 11:48 AM
Anyone ever think about changing the form??
Yes.  It's on "The List" (I think)
Or am I the only person that has ever been confused by this?
No.  My first walls were bmps and I got a tonne of complaints because they were so big.  -sigh-

zakai1369
Reply #5 Friday, March 7, 2008 11:53 AM
You should not upload bitmaps (even though the form says so).You should use jpg.  It's the standard (and smaller than a png).


Hadnt ever really paid attention until reading this. But about 2/3 of the wallpapers Ive downloaded here are jpg and 1/3 bmp.

I always thought they had to be bmp for the better quality. Then again I didnt realize until recently that you could save them as png and then as .jpg and get a higher quality jpg.

Anyone ever think about changing the form??


Would make sense huh

messiah1
Reply #6 Friday, March 7, 2008 11:56 AM
I always thought they had to be bmp for the better quality. Then again I didnt realize until recently that you could save them as png and then as .jpg and get a higher quality jpg.


If you save right out of photoshop, you don't need to do the png to jpg thing. Just save as jpg with a 12 quality. I use the png to jpg thing when taking screenshots because I've found most screenshots that go to jpg direct are crappy quality.

2of3
Reply #7 Friday, March 7, 2008 11:58 AM
Personally I always use .bmps on my own desktop.
I absolutely hate the "shadowing" and blurring the inevitably occurs when you convert to .jpg. But I understand that .jpg is the preferred format because it take up less space.

2of3
Reply #8 Friday, March 7, 2008 11:59 AM
Just save as jpg with a 12 quality. I use the png to jpg thing when taking screenshots because I've found most screenshots that go to jpg direct are crappy quality.


Good advice!

zakai1369
Reply #9 Friday, March 7, 2008 12:01 PM
If you save right out of photoshop, you don't need to do the png to jpg thing. Just save as jpg with a 12 quality. I use the png to jpg thing when taking screenshots because I've found most screenshots that go to jpg direct are crappy quality.



RickyMaveety
Reply #10 Friday, March 7, 2008 12:14 PM
Since I'm totally new to Photoshop .... where do I find the quality settings generally?

zakai1369
Reply #11 Friday, March 7, 2008 12:40 PM
When you go to save it as a jpg a popup box will appear with the quality settings

CarGuy1
Reply #12 Friday, March 7, 2008 12:50 PM
Question about saving a jpg in Photoshop to use as wallpaper. Any idea as to what the bitrate should be set as? I always choose the highest thinking it will be of better quality but I really have no idea. I can't imagine it matters if it's not part of a animation.

Fuzzy Logic
Reply #13 Friday, March 7, 2008 1:07 PM
I uploaded one on my walls as a bmp. The loss of quality with jpg was to great   

HG_Eliminator
Reply #14 Friday, March 7, 2008 1:34 PM
For screen shots I press print scren button then open gimp or xnview and copy the image directly from the clipboard and save as Jpg on the highest setting. I never use MS paint to save as any thing but BMP (the loss is to great).

Walls always get saved as BMP then, changed to JPEG with Xnview, photoshop or gimp, ive really noticed no to little image degradation.

Koasati
Reply #15 Friday, March 7, 2008 3:03 PM
Without going to look, I believe the form says upload
I could have sworn I downloaded some that were PNG, but the upload information says (or seems to say) that you are supposed to zip up your wallpaper as a BMP.


Actually it says "* Bitmap File (.zip)", not BMP. A bitmap is ANY raster image.
JPG, PNG, BMP, TIFF, GIF, etc....... all are bitmap files.


Bebi Bulma
Reply #16 Friday, March 7, 2008 3:34 PM
Without going to look, I believe the form says upload I could have sworn I downloaded some that were PNG, but the upload information says (or seems to say) that you are supposed to zip up your wallpaper as a BMP.Actually it says "* Bitmap File (.zip)", not BMP. A bitmap is ANY raster image. JPG, PNG, BMP, TIFF, GIF, etc....... all are bitmap files.

Yeah but to us n00bs it's really confusing (yep...confused me too, not like THAT is difficult).   

RickyMaveety
Reply #17 Friday, March 7, 2008 4:37 PM
OK .... I'm used to calling and thinking of Raster files as .... well, Raster files. And, while I'd call a BMP a Bitmap ... I'd probably call a JPG a "J-PEG" and not a Bitmap. But then, clearly I'm an ignoramous in this regard.

So the terms Bitmap and Raster are completely interchangeable?? Is there a term for Vector image that works the same way??

And, if any bitmap file may be uploaded, then why not make the form much (much) clearer and note that the site perfers JPG images?? I mostly work in PNG myself (and I don't call them Bitmaps ... sorry, I will never learn to do that), so depending on how much bandwidth is saved between a 12 level JPG and a PNG, I might just upload those.

So ... once again .... All Bitmaps are Rasters, and all Rasters are Bitmaps, and all BMPs are Bitmaps, but not all Bitmaps are BMPs.

Eeeeeeeeeek!!

Koasati
Reply #18 Friday, March 7, 2008 5:13 PM

OK .... I'm used to calling and thinking of Raster files as .... well, Raster files. And, while I'd call a BMP a Bitmap ... I'd probably call a JPG a "J-PEG" and not a Bitmap.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raster_graphics

I also call BMP, bitmap, and JPG, j-peg, but I don't call PNG, ping, I call it P-N-G........



Jafo
Reply #19 Friday, March 7, 2008 5:23 PM

There's no law against uploading graphics with a .bmp suffix [there...I overcame/side-stepped debate about rasters] as wallpapers.

The TWO most commonly uploaded are JPG and BMP, both of which are natively accepted by the Windows OS as wallpapers.

JPGs will be smaller than the same image in BMP format but, depending on the proggy and settings used 'can' have degradation through compression.

Life is 'easier' if multi-resolution uploads [in zip] are all jpegs.....just because the download file-size will be smaller/faster, nothing else....


RickyMaveety
Reply #20 Friday, March 7, 2008 5:51 PM
OK .... I'm used to calling and thinking of Raster files as .... well, Raster files. And, while I'd call a BMP a Bitmap ... I'd probably call a JPG a "J-PEG" and not a Bitmap.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raster_graphicsI also call BMP, bitmap, and JPG, j-peg, but I don't call PNG, ping, I call it P-N-G........


Yup .... so do I.

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