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] Color Saturation

Just switched from a very problematic MT4G (went through 5 of them) to the G2, and so far I'm very happy with the switch. However, I noticed that a lot of my images (photos & wallpaper) seem to have a slightly yellow/green tint to them. Is there any way to change the color saturation on this phone, and has anyone else experienced this as well?
Thanks.

dustrho said:
Just switched from a very problematic MT4G (went through 5 of them) to the G2, and so far I'm very happy with the switch. However, I noticed that a lot of my images (photos & wallpaper) seem to have a slightly yellow/green tint to them. Is there any way to change the color saturation on this phone, and has anyone else experienced this as well?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've noticed my device's screen has a bit "warmer" color temperature than would seem to be preferred by most users. My previous unit from T-Mobile was not like this at all, and noticeably "cooler"/more blue.
Dunno what to tell you.

Cynageon Mod has render effects to calabrate the screen

ah yes im not the only one who has noticed this, this is my second g2 as to the first i had bad pixels nd exchanged it, i had hd2 and i notice that the hd2 has a more vivid color and g2 has a more calm and warmer colors

can you please tell where are these settings?

MacaronyMax said:
Cynageon Mod has render effects to calabrate the screen
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
they have predefined settings blue,red,green, N1... is there a way to change them?

My phone has something like this I think the photos look blurry in some spots especially in street view mode on the maps.... I don't know if its because cm7 or not
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App

nac5000 said:
they have predefined settings blue,red,green, N1... is there a way to change them?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With this app there is:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=745248
Use Root Explorer to place it in /system/app, change permissions to 644 (rw-r--r--), and reboot.
Not sure if it works with the latest CM7 nightly, but I tried it a couple weeks back with whatever CM7 nightly and it worked fine. Unless you have a baseline though, it's hard to know what to adjust it to.
I have a calibrated monitor and if I hold the phone next to it with the same photo on each, the G2 screen looks just a bit cool with the default CM render effect (no render effect). The calibrated N1 setting is too warm, so it's somewhere in between them.
I was going to mess with it further, but I'm ok with my screen as is.

How to Change The Resolution of Your Phone / A Must if You Have Root!

So it has been mentioned throughout a lot of threads but I figured I would give a step by step and overview for the people who do not know about this or are unsure what it means and does. You must be rooted to use this.
When you compare our phones to a phone that has a qHD display you will see that the qHD display will have smaller text and will allow you to view more on the screen at one time then our WVGA screen allows. Well this is how you can even the playing field and view your phone like it was a qHD or even a 720p screen.
No more super large text like your phone was built for the blind. Also, a great feature if you use an alternate launcher you can set the screen to 5x5 or even 6x6 depending on the resolution you pick.
You will need the 2 apps from below.
First you need to install busybox. Download the app and then open it. From there it will ask you to install. Just choose okay for all the defaults and don't change anything.
https://market.android.com/details?...t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsInN0ZXJpY3Nvbi5idXN5Ym94Il0.
Next app is lcd resolution. This is where you change the resolution.
https://market.android.com/details?...NvbS53ZW1vYnMuYW5kcm9pZC5sY2RyZXNvbHV0aW9uIl0.
There are 2 settings I use, 200 which is almost identical to qhd. qHD is 960x540 and the app allows you to set it at 960x576. You can also set it at 160 which is 720p. You can use all the settings in-between as well but I stick to these 2. You can do your own testing and see what works best for you. Make sure when testing that you do not click save on boot in case your Rom does not play nice with that resolution. I have found that 200 works almost everything but 160 can be a little more tricky, especially with certain themes. You top bar will be all blurry. A reset will put you back to stock if your Rom does not like the resolution as long as you did not click set on boot.
By doing this hack, TW launcher will not play nice so you must use an alternative. All other launchers will work. The stock dialer will also not work. You can use Go contacts, dialer one or Ex Dialer. They all look and function great. You will also need an alternate calendar and calculator app. Their are a ton to choose from.
When setting your system to 200, you might encounter an error message saying certain apps are not compatible with your phone in the market. This is because this setting while close to qhd is not exactly the same resolution so the market app does not think is is compatible as it is not a standard resolution. There are 2 ways around this. You can install the app through Amazon market as it does not know the resolution you are running on your phone or you can switch back to stock (240) then clear market data and you can download the app. Then switch back to 200. This won't happen with every app as a lot will still download when st to 200.
When running at 160 (720p) you will not have this issue in the market as this is a native resolution of Android and is recognized by every app.
I think that covers it all for now and I cannot imagine going back to a WVGA resolution as it looks sooooooo much better running at a near qhd res.
Below are 2 picks showing the difference. One is stock, one is set to 200 (qhd) and the other to 160 (720p).
Stock (240)
qHD (200)
720p (160)

I like 720p. Also, you can edit your build.prop manually and modify:
ro.sf.lcd_density=240
Does anyone know how to modify a theme to make it work with this?

bertm13 said:
I like 720p. Also, you can edit your build.prop manually and modify:
ro.sf.lcd_density=240
Does anyone know how to modify a theme to make it work with this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah TW theme built for 720p setting would be a keeper.

bertm13 said:
I like 720p. Also, you can edit your build.prop manually and modify:
ro.sf.lcd_density=240
Does anyone know how to modify a theme to make it work with this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That works as well but the app makes it much quicker to jump between resolutions then having to edit the file.

When i changed it with LCD density the resolution changed but there was lots of space under the home screen # indicator, can you do a shot of your home screen and wallpaper to see what it looks like?

xlGmanlx said:
When i changed it with LCD density the resolution changed but there was lots of space under the home screen # indicator, can you do a shot of your home screen and wallpaper to see what it looks like?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you can't use Touchwiz. Need another launcher, and dialer. On some roms the camera and music apps break too if you go too low (like 720p), likely others.

I am confused, if the resolution can be improved via software, then how come the manufacturers are not doing it, what is the catch?
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

kingsway8605 said:
I am confused, if the resolution can be improved via software, then how come the manufacturers are not doing it, what is the catch?
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was going to take issue with OP's terminology but decided to not be 'that guy'...
...but here we are.
This doesn't actually change the resolution of the panel at all. You always have the same amount of pixels. Period. All this does is scale the UI. at a screen density of 160 our screen will display things at the size that a 720p screen of identical size would display them. However we lose detail on fonts whereas a 720p screen would have the same amount of detail at 160 as we would at 240....roughly. If you can live with smaller and slightly blocky fonts, go for it.
I can. It's awesome.
another confusing but interesting tidbit: LCD Pixels are made up of red green and blue subpixels. Our panel and the 720p Galaxy Nexus panel have an identical amount of subpixels. But the 720p panel achieves a higher resolution by using less subpixels for each pixel. That is why it is said to have a "pentile" display, as each pixel is composed an arrangement of 5 sub-pixels whereas we have 12 sub-pixels for each pixel. This also explains why 800x480 (WVGA) "pentile" panels look like crap...err...ahem...receive so much criticism. (See: motorola displays)
EDIT: Also, more sub-pixels per pixel means better 'sub-pixel hinting'...which is an effect used to enhance text on LCD panels. The fact that we have so many sub-pixels is probably the only reason why we can pull this off. Of course I'm assuming that android takes advantage of subpixels.

Just a reminder to everyone to nandroid before doing anything like this;
My phone won't boot after doing this. I can get into CWM, but anytime I try to reboot it gets stuck in a loop at the Sprint / 4g animation. I suspect it has something to do with busybox installation but who knows.
I did NOT have the "Set on Boot" selected in the LCD density app. I think I already had busybox support... maybe trying to install the market busybox app borked something.
Anyhoo... always do a nandroid, kids!

As Dan mentioned, it does not actually change the resolution in the true sense but for the purpose of this thread I didn't get into that detail.
I think our screens look 10x better then the Evo 3d and the photon screens when our screens are set to WVGA compared to their qhd display. This only makes it better. With a screen this large it only makes sense to shrink things down to get more on the screen.
Now the Galaxy Nexus screen, I am expecting that to be a killer screen.

Ok thanks, it was leaving like choke real estate under the page number on the screens, I actually like Touchwiz but thanks for the heads up
daneurysm said:
you can't use Touchwiz. Need another launcher, and dialer. On some roms the camera and music apps break too if you go too low (like 720p), likely others.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

xlGmanlx said:
Ok thanks, it was leaving like choke real estate under the page number on the screens, I actually like Touchwiz but thanks for the heads up
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think if we could yank touchwiz off of a Galaxy Note it would do 720p (160) and if not whatever the density setting is on the Galaxy Note would make it fit perfectly.
As far as I've seen, touchwiz isn't ingrained in Android at all. I could be wrong, but, it seems like just a launcher. It's nothing like Sense which has it's big fat tentacles way up Android's ass.
...though I'm not a fan of Touchwiz, so, it really doesn't bother me at all. It's not that I hate touchwiz--I was actually astonished to find how nice it was after all of the Sense-o-philes bashed the crap out of it--I just love me some Launcher Pro and/or ADWex, depending on the time of day....though every now and then I throw on Launcher7 for giggles.

I think you are right on all accounts. I actually like its styling (well with ICS + ICS Twist) but the fact that the launcher is hardware accelerated is too much to give up
daneurysm said:
I think if we could yank touchwiz off of a Galaxy Note it would do 720p (160) and if not whatever the density setting is on the Galaxy Note would make it fit perfectly.
As far as I've seen, touchwiz isn't ingrained in Android at all. I could be wrong, but, it seems like just a launcher. It's nothing like Sense which has it's big fat tentacles way up Android's ass.
...though I'm not a fan of Touchwiz, so, it really doesn't bother me at all. It's not that I hate touchwiz--I was actually astonished to find how nice it was after all of the Sense-o-philes bashed the crap out of it--I just love me some Launcher Pro and/or ADWex, depending on the time of day....though every now and then I throw on Launcher7 for giggles.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

xlGmanlx said:
I think you are right on all accounts. I actually like its styling (well with ICS + ICS Twist) but the fact that the launcher is hardware accelerated is too much to give up
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Has this been verified? I stopped caring about it once I got LP/ADW up and running and it seems supernaturally smooth. Though I have to admit that the transition to the app drawer in TW is phenomenally smooth...aside from that, though, I don't really see it.
...and if only TW is hardware accelerated that must be via an API. Samsung proprietary? Considering the popularity of the SGS2 worldwide I'd imagine there would have to be another launcher that would take advantage of these hooks.
Honestly if we do, in fact, have hardware acceleration (and I believe we do) why wouldn't that be system wide? Once you go into settings you are out of the launcher and if anyone remembers Cupcake or Donut holy crap was that a painful experience for what was at the time super fast 528-800mhz phones (g1/hero and moment).

this is a great find I think, I really like the tight resolution, not too keen on having to change the type of launcher either
Has anyone noticed the jacked up notification on the notification bar?
And too bad there's not a way to make the dialer and home screens fit the screen now!
Thanks for the hint

Tried this at 160 using go launcher on starburst 1.9.8r with the beta ICS theme and it looked great except the status bar was screwed up. Do you think it might be the theme or rom?

psych2l said:
Tried this at 160 using go launcher on starburst 1.9.8r with the beta ICS theme and it looked great except the status bar was screwed up. Do you think it might be the theme or rom?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Was it a theme you added on to the Rom? If so, you can try it without the theme.
I am running Calk's 1.5a Rom and it works at 160 by itself, with the honey theme and the ICS mixup theme as well...

Tried it at 200 but didn't like how it screwed the dialer up and went back to 240.

tenaciousj said:
Tried it at 200 but didn't like how it screwed the dialer up and went back to 240.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Download GoContacts, it comes with GoDialer. Both better than stock apps and free and work at any density.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA App

Anyone figure out a way to replicate a true qHD resolution? Being that it is a little off you get the apps not compatible message in the market. If you were able to replicate the exact res like 720p does you would not get that message.

[Q] Background picture resolution

Hello,
I have CM7 on my kindle. When I set a new background picture I notice that quality is worse then original file. So the picture looks blur. When I zoom picture manually it looks much better then when it is set as background. Does anyone noticed such a "problem"? Are there any way to solve it?
Thx in advance.

NikolayS82 said:
Hello,
I have CM7 on my kindle. When I set a new background picture I notice that quality is worse then original file. So the picture looks blur. When I zoom picture manually it looks much better then when it is set as background. Does anyone noticed such a "problem"? Are there any way to solve it?
Thx in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
get the app crop wallpaper on the play store that allways helped me
Sent from my HellfireKindle using Tapatalk 2

It worked just great. Thank you

After struggling with this myself, I found that 1200x1024 wallpapers fit the best on our screens.

Also when you find an image don't just copy the thumbnail actually open up picture before copying, and the screen Res is 1024x600 if I'm not mistaken
sent from my ever evolving kindle fire

I had a similar issue, at popular wall sites I found ipad/ipad2 walls work ok but it does crop a touch off the top and bottom. These are 1024x1024 so that leads me to think agtef's 1200x1024 conclusion is likely exact.