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Windows 7 converts BMP/TIFF/PNG to JPG for wallpaper

Submitted by HeresyProgram on November 11, 2008 to Aesthetics, Annoyance

Windows 7/Vista reduces PNG/BMP/TIFF to an artifacted JPG if you attempt to load one as wallpaper.

The desktop should take a given image, display it and not touch it. PNG is not a niche file format, so display it natively, transparencies and all. Most users that would notice this would likely understand memory usage issues. So give us the option.

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Not fixed

Discussion (12 comments)

JonathanJ wrote on November 11, 2008, 8:12am

I agree that wallpapers should be displayed as-is but Microsoft is not into "options" as they introduce complexities into the system. There is a good chance this will be disregarded but +1.

Phil_123 wrote on November 11, 2008, 1:37pm

How about using PNG or any other lossless format instead of JPG?

HeresyProgram wrote on November 11, 2008, 9:38pm

@Phil: That's what I'm saying. If you try to use a PNG it is converted by Windows to a JPG which results in ugly artifacts. It's not elegant at all.

alirobe wrote on November 12, 2008, 3:35pm

I actually would prefer that it did use the most efficient format possible - I don't want to be wasting my system resources displaying an inefficient background, as long as I can't see artefacts. And I don't see why you would want to display transparencies on a background - there's nothing behind it!

sushovande wrote on November 13, 2008, 9:58am

I think having a jpg as a wallpaper (native support introduced in Vista) improves login time by a few seconds (and that's non-trivial). That is why even mspaint has switched to jpg for setting wallpaper.

nitrous9200 wrote on November 27, 2008, 4:42am

I like this idea, though the majority of users wouldn't notice or care and MS would say it's too much work.

keff wrote on January 4, 2009, 7:14pm

alirobe, it's hard to choose good format for every picture, and for example the slight gradients, or the popular tiny diagonal strips are visibly damaged even at 99% JPEG quality setting.

dabski wrote on January 31, 2009, 4:57am

+1 for using PNG or BMP, alternatively just leave the wallpaper in the format that it's already in.

terandle wrote on February 25, 2009, 3:57am

Yeah leave the images alone please.
Converting a PNG to 100% JPG just for use as a background got rid of the artifacts but now the colors are being washed out, bleh.

fred wrote on January 9, 2010, 6:45pm

Wow. Just who decided this?

"I don't want to be wasting my system resources displaying an inefficient background"
...No. I'm not even going to point out the ridiculousness in that statement. :P

patternjake wrote on January 14, 2010, 12:04am

+1. Leave it in the format it is in. Also BMP slows things down considerably.

fluxrider wrote on March 11, 2010, 4:52am

JPEG format is designed for photograph. I noticed the unwelcome conversion when setting a cartoon PNG wallpaper as background. +1 ^_^

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