Making Windows Wallpaper

With Picture Publisher

The first step in making Wallpaper is to determine what resolution yourscreen is set to. Most people run their screen in 640 X 480 or 800 X 600mode.

DeterminingScreen Resolution in Windows 95

To see what your screen is set to, open the Control Panel and doubleclick the Display icon. Click on the Settings tab. Under Desktop Area yourscreen resolution will be listed. You should also check under Color Paletteto make sure that your screen is set at least to 16-bit High Color modebacause scanned images will not look good at 256 or 16 color mode. Onceyou have determined your screen resolution, you can create a Wallpaperof the same dimensions. For this tutorial we will assume the resolutionis set to 640 X 480.

DeterminingScreen Resolution in Windows 3.1x

From the Program Manager, open the Main program group. Double clickthe Windows Setup icon. The next screen will say what resolution your displayis set to.

Steps For Making A Wallpaper

The steps for making Wallpaper are the same in Picture Publisher forWindows 3.1x and Windows 95, though the Windows 3.1x screens may look slightlydifferent than the ones shown here.

1. Select a 3-1/2" X 5" or 4" X 6" picture to useas your Wallpaper.

2. Start Picture Publisher and Acquire the scanner.

3. Set the Scan Mode to Color, Resolution to 150 DPI and click the ColorMatching icon (the one with a red, a green & a blue dot) abovethe Preview Image window.

4. Prescan the image then set the Crop Frame to the full size of yourpicture.

5. Scan the image. After scanning, click the cancel button to closethe Twain driver and return to Picture Publisher with your image.

6. Click on the Image Menu and select Size.

7. The dialog box next to the width box to probably says Inches. Changeit to say pixels as shown below.

8. The Width and Height of your image in pixels is now displayed.

9. Notice in the example that my image is 887 X 594 pixels. This istoo large to fit on a 640 X 480 screen so I will either have to scale downthe image or crop it in order to make it fit my screen. I choose to scaleit down.

10. A 3-1/2" X 5" or 4" X 6" photo is too wide touse all of the image as Wallpaper. It will need to be cropped later toget the proper width. For now, I am only concerned about getting the Heightdown to 480 pixels. To do this, manually type in 480 in the Height boxas shown below. Notice that for my sample image this is a scaling factorof 81%.

11. Make sure the Use Smartsizing button is checked (smartsizing willusually result in a smoother image), then click the Size button.

12. My sample picture is now 717 X 480, still too wide for a 640 X 480screen.

13. We will use Picture Publisher’s powerful masking features to cropthe image to exactly 640 X 480. Refer to the picture below for the nextsteps.

14. On the Toolbar at left, click the Mask tool and select first masktool on the left (one with square, circle and knife).

15. Under the shape dialog box, make sure the square is selected.

16. Under the method dialog box, choose Constrain Size.

17. Under the Units dialog box, select pixels.

18. Set the Width to 640 and the Height to 480.

19. Click the mask tool on your picture and keep the mouse button helddown. This will draw a box exactly 640 X 480 pixels. You can move it backand forth to crop the image where you want to. Once you let the mouse buttonup, a mask will be drawn.

20. Click on the Mask Menu and choose Crop To Mask. You now have a pictureexactly 640 X 480 pixels which can be used as a Windows Wallpaper.

21. Click on the file Menu and choose Save.

22. Under the Save In dialog box, choose the Windows folder.

23. Under the Save As Type dialog box, choose Windows Bitmap (*.bmp).

24. In the File Name dialog box, type in a name for yor new Wallpaperthen click the Save button.

Selecting YourNew Wallpaper in Windows 95.

To select your new Wallpaper, open the Control Panel and double clickthe Display icon. Click on the Background tab. In the Wallpaper dialogbox, select the filename you saved your picture as. If you do not see theright name on the list of Wallpaper files, you did not save your file inthe Windows folder or you did not save it as a *.bmp file.

Selecting YourNew Wallpaper in Windows 3.1x

To select your new Wallpaper, open the Main program group and doubleclick the Control Panel. Double click the Desktop icon. In the Wallpaperdialog box, select the filename you saved your picture as. If you do notsee the right name on the list of Wallpaper files, you did not save yourfile in the Windows folder or you did not save it as a *.bmp file.