Windows 7 Win7 can't use a lossless PNG or BMP as the Background, It makes it a lossy jpg!!

Zeos

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Joined
Dec 4, 2009
I don't know why this happens but setting a perfect lossless PNG as a windows background does not yield that same image windows uses as the background. Somewhere along the line windows seems to re-save it as a jpg with lots of artifacts and jaggies before using it as wallpaper. Is there some reg-edit that can fix this or does anyone know where the newly formed temporary .jpg goes? I have a cycling of about 15 PNG lossless screenshots and I can clearly make out all the "bad" windows is introducing to them by re-compressing.
 
I agree with you. It can sometimes totally b*gg*r up your well crafted wallpaper.

Here's the storage location: C:\Users\Your User Name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Themes. The file gets saved as TranscodedWallpaper.jpg.

I've not tried this method but I found this post by PixelOz, 7th one down, that describes a possible solution (OK, it's still a jpg, but at least you get to set the compression, i.e. none!!).

If you want to prevent too many compression artifacts in your Vista or Windows 7 wallpapers you save you images to the place where Windows stores them manually without using the Set as Desktop Background feature. In my computer this folder is in C:\Users\My User Name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows Photo Gallery.

Try to find that folder and store your wallpapers there yourself manually. In my case (Vista) when I right mouse click on the desktop I select Personalize and I choose Desktop Background and right there I get this folder and you can see its location when you click the Browse button in the window that appears. Just click in the address bar above and you will see the whole address to that folder and you can even create a shortcut on your desktop to take you to that place directly to make it easy to put other wallpapers there in the future but if you want to you can just copy & paste a wallpaper right there in that folder that appears after you clicked on the Browse button. As for what format to use in that folder I found that it works with .jpg only as far as I know cause if I put a .png image in that folder when I click the Browse button I don't see the picture so I use the .jpg format to put wallpapers there.

Do this and then normally select any image that you manually placed on that folder as a wallpaper and voila! your artifacts will be gone. :)

OK I've just tried it, my PC hasn't melted. Yet! How you'd go about setting this up for a slideshow however.......
 
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Hi Zeos. If you want to change your PNG and BMP images to JPEG, then in Accessories in All Programs select Paint. Top left corner blue tab drop down menu select Open, then go to where the picture is and select it. Once it's open in Paint, same blue tab select Save As and JPEG will be an option. When you save it you will have to rename it in order to save both images. Hope this helps.
 
How you'd go about setting this up for a slideshow however.......

I just opened all the PNG's in my cycle folder and re-saved them as 1 compression JPG's in Paint Shop pro. Seems to work as when I change it the Jpg in the C:\Users\XXX\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Themes folder is the same size as the newly saved one ie +1.5 megs.


This is a dumb issue and should not exist.
 
This is a dumb issue and should not exist.
I agree with you.
Now my transcodedWallpaper is an uncompressed 1.4mb, compared with the previous compressed size of 324kb, the clarity is amazing! I can now see the hairs on the pimple on the knee of a flea. Not literally, but you get the idea! That also explains the slideshow dilemma (of mine). I take it the jpg is copied over to the transcodedwallpapers folder when it's in use, to be replaced at the next change over etc. etc..
 
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