Wallpapers, colors and desktop usability

ebrostig

EDIT: Split off from New gentoo wallpaper. -- pjp

It is nice to see people making all kinds of wallpapers, but there is one thing wrong with all of them (Please, don't take this as an attack, it is not!).

What is wrong?
The image is too bright! If this is supposed to be a wallpaper on your desktop, it needs to be a lot more subdued. It should allow for icons and text to be readable. By using some of the wallpapers here, it is not and it fails to make a nice background image on my desktop. It becomes a foreground image rather.

Anyone else?

Erik
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mksoft · l33t Joined: 28 May 2002 Posts: 844

ebrostig · Posted: Wed Jan 08, 2003 12:10 am Post subject:

Mksoft and others!
I do appreciate the work you guys do on the artistic side.

While Mksoft makes some valid points about the use of desktop, me way of working is a little different maybe and I prefer Icons on the desktop in many ways. I use 10 desktops and when I need to launch an ad-hoc program, I just switch to an empty dekstop, click the icon to start the program

So, to me a background image is at its best when it is exactly that, a background image. It's almost like transparent menus, they work best when the transparency is not too obvious, that way you can actually read the menus. Same goes for background images as well.

That's of course just my lousy $ 0.02! :wink:

Erik
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ebrostig · Posted: Wed Jan 08, 2003 12:39 am Post subject:

To illustrate what I mean, I have taken the image posted by Mksoft above and tweaked it so it looks better on my desktop. I will remove the image from Deskmod in a few days unless MkSoft gives me permission to leave his work of art there (I know you probably think it looks ugly now

)

It's just a quick hack to underline my previous post. I am not an artist and it is not a finished product and it is not even my work, give credit to Mksoft for the original work.

Check it out here

Erik
[/img]
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mksoft · l33t Joined: 28 May 2002 Posts: 844

Yikes, I think I'm blind

All the contrast is gone. Anyway, you can leave it there if you wish, but please add links to the original work (and due credit).
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pilla · Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2003 8:44 pm Post subject:

My head hurts!!!!

I would delete this thread, if only I could find the delete button now....

I'll be back, with my sunglasses

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charlieg · Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2003 10:53 pm Post subject: Uh

What's all this crap about background images being too light or bright?

White backgrounds and black text do pretty well for, say, ooo, 80% of the internet.
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ebrostig · Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2003 2:05 am Post subject:

Lol, Bloody! (Maybe I should take off mine?)

Mksoft, it was just an example and I'll remove it.

My point was just that by toning down the image, I find it more suitable as a background on a desktop that I use for a lot more than just sitting there as a pretty picture

Erik
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pilla · Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2003 2:13 am Post subject:

I was just kidding, of course.

I prefer darker wallpapers, as they stress less your eyes. For my terminals, I use white letters in a black backgrounds. Your wallpapers are a little bit too colourfull for my taste

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ebrostig · Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2003 2:28 am Post subject:

pilla · Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2003 2:36 am Post subject:

Once I took a course on "Man-machine interaction", and the instructor sweared that the best colour combination was amber foreground and black background....
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ebrostig · Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2003 2:46 am Post subject:

masseya · Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2003 1:52 pm Post subject:

Well, I like the colorful backgrounds for several reasons. I think they look much nicer than something that's mostly black or mostly white. I use a shaded aterm most of the time when I'm in a teminal and it makes just that section of the background mostly black. I use fluxbox and start almost everything with the mouse menu or some keyboard combination, so I don't have to read icons off the background. This allows me to have something that's actually pleasing to the eye as opposed to drab for my background. Just thought I would chime in with my two cents.

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pilla · Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2003 2:29 pm Post subject:

Oh, if I could collect al the 2 cents from these threads!

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Zu` · l33t Joined: 26 May 2002 Posts: 716 Location: BE

Matje · Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2003 11:18 am Post subject:

Just to get back to stressing your eyes: Least stressing is darkgreen bg, white fg. That's why they make the blackboards today green :-)

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gsfgf · Veteran Joined: 08 May 2002 Posts: 1266