Develop Bugs

Why doesn't my custom wallpaper look sharp? **SOLVED**

Hi all. I just bought the Galaxy S Vibrant, and I love it. I wanted to change the wallpaper, so I made my own. I crop my pics in Photoshop (960x800) and the sizes come around 500-700KB. I then transfer them onto my phone via Kies. Then when I go into the phone to set the pic as wallpaper, I stretch out the orange crop square to include the full picture, then set as wallpaper. But the pics don't look sharp on the phone. They are not incredibly dull, but they definitely don't look as sharp as I know they are on my computer monitor. And I have a run of the mill $200 computer monitor. Even the factory wallpapers look sharper on the phone. Does anyone know why this is? Great forum, thanks for all the help!
**UPDATE**
Ok so here's what was happening, First off let me just say I finally got reconnected to my PC, don't ask me how, because it took half a day to finally connect, and I have no Idea why it decided to all of a sudden successfully connect to my PC after forever failing to connect. Whatevs....back to the topic at hand. So when I was transferring Pics from Kies to Phone, apparently Kies was compressing the image to save space I guess. I got hooked up as mass storage, looked at the pics on the phone and low and behold my 600+ KB pic was showing to only be a measly 60KB pic on the phone. Big time compression from Kies. So I quickly deleted that garbage off the phone, and instead dragged and dropped my original 600+KB pic on to the phone, it's still at the correct resolution of 960x800, took a look at it on the phone's display and VOILA sheer utter crispness. Just the way it should be. So there you go, DONT USE KIES TO TRANSFER PICS!!! Hope that helps anyone making their own wallpaper. Now to go and see if I can find a solution to this issue of hit and miss with connecting to my PC.

The Samsung i9000 has a resolution of 480x800. If a picture has a different resolution, the phone has to "recalculate" the picture, because the resolutions dont match. At first i would try to change the resolution of the picture to that one of the phone and see if its any better.

Tempott said:
Hi all. I just bought the Galaxy S Vibrant, and I love it. I wanted to change the wallpaper, so I made my own. I crop my pics in Photoshop (960x800) and the sizes come around 500-700KB. I then transfer them onto my phone via Kies. Then when I go into the phone to set the pic as wallpaper, I stretch out the orange crop square to include the full picture, then set as wallpaper. But the pics don't look sharp on the phone. They are not incredibly dull, but they definitely don't look as sharp as I know they are on my computer monitor. And I have a run of the mill $200 computer monitor. Even the factory wallpapers look sharper on the phone. Does anyone know why this is? Great forum, thanks for all the help!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried everything from downloading 2560x1600 images to resizing them in photoshop to no avail - they always looked blurred once set as wallpapers on the SGS. Then I tried an iPad wallpaper(1024x1024) and lo' and behold - 't was sharp!
So to anyone looking for custom wallpapers for the SGS just download the ones meant for the iPad and then use the gallery to set it as wallpaper and you'll have a razor sharp wallpaper.

I allways use my photos (taken from digital camera) as they are, without changing resolution. Touchwiz automatically rezises the images/photos to fit the best way. Never had any blured background.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

TMReuffurth said:
I allways use my photos (taken from digital camera) as they are, without changing resolution. Touchwiz automatically rezises the images/photos to fit the best way. Never had any blured background.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You must be kidding because on my galaxy they look like utter crap. Are you sure they are sharp(have you compared them to the ones that come pre-installed)?

Exellent tip toss3 with the iPad wallpapers! they are really sharp

Toss3 said:
You must be kidding because on my galaxy they look like utter crap. Are you sure they are sharp(have you compared them to the ones that come pre-installed)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really don´t know what you mean! Every photo i use as background looks exactly as it looks on my Desktop Computer. No blur, no distortion, no unscharpening. They really look like the original!
I don´t understand why they should look different!? When i choose a background Photo or image, the Phone gives me the ability to select the part (with a rectangle) i want to see as my background. So the phone automatically crops the photo. I mean why to crop it manually on the home computer? Doesn´t make any sense.
BTW: i haven´t my SGS rooted and haven´t installed a different Launcher.

if you crop your pictures with the tools for setting wallpapers then i agree they are very poor, very blurry!
i cropped one of these images in PS to that reso, and it looks freekin awsome.
are you saving your PS image properly? max quality etc? .png i think is best also

My wallpapers are sharp, if they are in 960x800. Most of the other walls are also sharp, even they would be 1280x800. There is also an app on the market colled: Wallpaper Set & Save. This keeps the wallpaper sharp, but the walls must be the right resolution, cause it scales it to fit the screen automatic.

Metatron111 said:
The Samsung i9000 has a resolution of 480x800. If a picture has a different resolution, the phone has to "recalculate" the picture, because the resolutions dont match. At first i would try to change the resolution of the picture to that one of the phone and see if its any better.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes resolution of the screen is 480x800, but the wallpaper needs to cover the area of all 7 backgrounds. That makes it an area of 960x800. The factory wallpaper are all 960x800. For instance the factory wallpaper of the kitten is 960x800 and only 178KB in size. My pic I'm using for my wallpaper is a pic I took with my Nikon D90 cropped to 960x800 and downsized to 616KB. My pic definitely looks sharper than any of the factory wallpapers, but once I transfer it to the phone, it loses some the sharpness.

960 by 800 should be the resolution. Any resizing will produce a less than ideal image. I'm not sure why (probably the algorithm used in resizing the image?) but it's one those little things that hopefully gets fixed.

Try sending it via email to yourself instead of using kies, or uploading it via USB drive.
I've never had any problems with custom backgrounds on the phone.

Spybreak said:
Try sending it via email to yourself instead of using kies, or uploading it via USB drive.
I've never had any problems with custom backgrounds on the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
or transfer via bluetooth if the laptop/desktop has that

You can just always send you files from pc to phone via bluetooth, while SGS having gps issue, its bluetooth connectivity rocks!

I had this problem which annoyed the hell outta me. Sure I could resize it, but on a modern phone I think it's quite silly that it's not able to auto adjust it automatically.
To get around manual adjustment, use an app called "Wallpaper Set and Save" from the app store. It will do exactly as you need. It's made my life a hell of a lot easier. Or, you could use a wallpaper app to download and set such as Backgrounds or Flikie Wallpapers which also work a treat.
Personally, I'd recommend getting WSS for setting your own papers, and using Flikie for finding new ones. The interface on Flikie is fantastic (similar to the native gallery app), and the range and quality of wallpapers on it are sensational
Edit: Oh, and just to add, if you want to add custom backgrounds to apps like Handcent, you'll have to manually resize them or you'll face the same crop-expand-horrid quality issues.

setting wallpaper on cm6

Quick question,
I went over the themes section and downloaded a football logo to save as my wallpaper. Well I always have this problem where I would like for the whole picture to be my wallpaper instead of a zoomed in blurred piece of it. I downloaded the Colts logo and you're forced to crop the stupid thing and i get a worthless part of the horseshoe. Is there a way to make it so that it doesn't crop every single image?

Stretch the frame within the picture...tried that?
SWYPED from my SUPASONIC

still crops it funny

Somebody was asking this earlier, never have any issues stretching the frame to get the full picture..?
SWYPED from my SUPASONIC

There's always a wallpaper app in the market that will set you wallpaper perfect if you're having issues..
It's called Wallpaper Set & Save I think.

When I was on fresh's rom, or any sense one for that matter, it seemed like when you cropped it, the picture was resized to fit the screen and still had great quality. With cm6, even if stretching the full frame, it zooms in on the picture and gives you a crappy blurred looking wallpaper.

jkinnison90 said:
There's always a wallpaper app in the market that will set you wallpaper perfect if you're having issues..
It's called Wallpaper Set & Save I think.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Downloaded one that worked quite well. Don't know why I didn't think of this. Thanks!

jkinnison90 said:
There's always a wallpaper app in the market that will set you wallpaper perfect if you're having issues..
It's called Wallpaper Set & Save I think.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting, thanks! For future purposes but setting a wp seems just the same with CM6 as before. Strangeness. :confusedface:
SWYPED from my SUPASONIC

[Q] Wallpapers on cyanogen 6.1 or evo period.

Ok I have been looking everywhere and can't seem to find a app that will set the wallpaper as is without cropping or cutting the edges off. I know the best resolution is 960x800 but it still cuts off parts of the picture. I've tried wallpaper set and save and a host of other apps from market and various android freeware sites. None of them seem to set them right, any help would be highly appreciated. I have an HTC evo running cyanogen 6.1 stable and everything is so far so good and I want to thank this website because without it I was lost. This is my number 1 forum so I know ill get the answer, its out their please help me find it. Thanks in advance!!

flikie wallpapers hd is about the best ive seen at this. it still crops but i keeps most of the image quality

Only thing I can think of is to take the photo you want, make the actual photo whatever the screen resolution is (480x800 from what I've read) with black bars on the side to make the entire picture file 960x800. Then use launcher pro to freeze the background so it doesnt move when you swipe. Your picture should be centered.

When you select the image for a wallpaper, you see that little box in the center? Drag outwards on one of its edges.

dkelle4 said:
Only thing I can think of is to take the photo you want, make the actual photo whatever the screen resolution is (480x800 from what I've read) with black bars on the side to make the entire picture file 960x800. Then use launcher pro to freeze the background so it doesnt move when you swipe. Your picture should be centered.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you all for the speedy replies, I see what your saying. I have my desktop set to have only one screen already, but I went and got launcherpro cause of its features. But yea I downloaded a few pictures before that were 480x800 and it had the black bars on the sides but when I set it, it cuts off the head and feet, 960x800 however does not, it only cuts just a little off the sides. I'm guessing now that the picture is to wide and I wanted to know if I could make a picture keep its height and change its width. I don't know maybe keep the height from the 960x800 setup and the width from the 480x800 setup if that's possible.
My friends, friend has his set up so that when he sets a wallpaper it gives him the option to set as is, to crop, and i think the other one was to cut it. I don't know if its a application or if its the firmware (like cyanogen i mean) he uses, I would ask but he lives very far a few cities over. I have been combing the internet for this app or whatever, and I'm fairly new to android phones, but I got a pretty good history with computers so that definitely helps. But this one seems to be a common problem with a somewhat easy fix. Any ideas?

Are you sure you didn't mix up the 2 sizes lol. 960x800, and not 800x960. Not trying to be a jerk or anything, but I've done that before using Photoshop.

Question about image size and wallpaper

1. Why are the pictures that my friends send to me via whatsapp, viber, etc smaller than the actual hox screen? I never had this issue when I used my HTC Sensation, and when I transferred the photos from the Sensation to my hox, the photos are smaller as well. Is there a resolution that I need to change? On the other hand, the photos that I take with my hox, always appear full size on the screen.
2. How do I disable wallpaper scrolling? Due to this, I am not able to get a full picture that I want to set. As many will know, we are only able to crop a certain area of the photo. I remember my Sensation had this issue but I some how bypassed it and was able to set any of my photos as a wallpaper.
Thanks a lot

s4one said:
1. Why are the pictures that my friends send to me via whatsapp, viber, etc smaller than the actual hox screen? I never had this issue when I used my HTC Sensation, and when I transferred the photos from the Sensation to my hox, the photos are smaller as well. Is there a resolution that I need to change? On the other hand, the photos that I take with my hox, always appear full size on the screen.
2. How do I disable wallpaper scrolling? Due to this, I am not able to get a full picture that I want to set. As many will know, we are only able to crop a certain area of the photo. I remember my Sensation had this issue but I some how bypassed it and was able to set any of my photos as a wallpaper.
Thanks a lot
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. The screen resolution of the HOX is 720x1280 pixels, whilst the sensation is 540x960 pixels. Your friend's photo may be smaller than the actual resolution, hence looks smaller. That's what came to my head.
2. Unfortunately, that's what I hate about the wallpaper customisation, what I do is go to Google Play and download the app "MultiPicture Live Wallpaper". It's confusing at first to use, however, it's the best app (I believe) out there.

NitNav said:
1. The screen resolution of the HOX is 720x1280 pixels, whilst the sensation is 540x960 pixels. Your friend's photo may be smaller than the actual resolution, hence looks smaller. That's what came to my head.
2. Unfortunately, that's what I hate about the wallpaper customisation, what I do is go to Google Play and download the app "MultiPicture Live Wallpaper". It's confusing at first to use, however, it's the best app (I believe) out there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks a lot, ill give it a shot!

[Q] dumb cropping question

other than changing the dimensions of a picture...
how the hell can i have a picture set to the screen without ICS/JB gallery trying to crop the picture... it annoys the hell out of me like the picture that I want has been taken with a nexus and I cant even set the whole picture to fill the wallpaper.. wth
i know there is a simple thing im drawing a blank atm lol