Problems with wallpaper

[Hyolee]

Hello Leonard,

I have problems with the reefs.org wallpapers. I like them a lot, but they are really unfriendly to Macintosh users. Let me list the reasons.

1. Some wallpapers have 'reefs.org' written in big letters on the right hand side of the screen. Macintosh icons default to the right hand side of the screen. As you can imagine this is quite annoying. The icons sit directly on top of the text, making it hard to read both the icons and the reefs logo.

2. Most other wallpapers have 'reefs.org' written in the lower right hand corner. This is also annoying because the dock (or taskbar for Windows fans) is transparent. The reefs logo interferes with the icons in the dock. Enough of a deterrent to make me stop using the wallpaper.

May I suggest that you take these factors into consideration when making future wallpapers?

A couple other question I have are as follows.

1. Most Macs sold nowadays have a widescreen display which is NOT 4:3. In order to display the wallpaper in the original aspect ratio, I would have to crop the photo. However, this is against the usage guidelines. Am I allowed to modify the photo for this purpose?

2. Why aren't all of the wallpapers in 1600x1200 resolution? Some of us like to run our monitors at a high resolution and it seems like a waste to take such beautiful photos and 'release' them at 1024x768. Releasing all the wallpapers as 1600x1200 would allow some users to take advantage of the additional pixels. (assuming the picture itself started out with 1600+ lines of resolution)

 

[Len]

I will look into making some Mac wallpapers in the near future. Unfortunately, only about 2% of our membership base uses Mac (and nearly none use it exclusively) so it's not really on the top of my priority list right now. But I will generate a few sometime this month for our Mac friends. Each wallpaper takes several hours to produce, so I have to allocate my time to serving the wants of our majority users.

 

[Len]

To answer your question about the image size:
Some aren't 1600x1200 because the native resolution is not high enough to fit a 1600x1200 screen. I can always interpolate to that screen size from a smaller image, but interpolation is not much better then letting Windows stretch the image itself. FYI, using a 1600x1200 image on a 1024x768 screen (stretched) has virtually no benefit.

Again, most of our users are on 1024x768. The 1600x1200 users are rare, but I have kept them in mind because 1) lesser resolution screens can still use them and 2) screen sizes are getting bigger and bigger by the day. The problem is it takes a lot sharper image to produce a 1600x1200 image (obviously harder to come by). It also takes a lot more post-processing work to publish a 1600x1200 wallpaper. I can likely make more pictures 1600x1200, but it would compromise the image quality. I hope you appreciate the resolution of the current wallpapers, but if people are satisfied with less resolution and larger screen sizes, I can accomdate in the future.

 

[Len]

I would have to crop the photo. However, this is against the usage guidelines. Am I allowed to modify the photo for this purpose?

You are correct; modifications of these wallpapers from their original form is prohibited.

I will see if I can produce some 16:9 wallpapers by the end of the month for your use (either varients of current wallpapers or new ones). What are the common Mac resolutions?

 

[Hyolee]

Here are the common Mac widescreen resolutions.

1280x854
1680x1050
1920x1200

 

[Len]

Ok, i'll see what I can do. 1920 horizontal is a whole lotta pixels, so that might be tough.