How to center a picture for desktop wallpaper in Windows 7

Hello all,

I was a long-time XP user and just switched over to Windows 7 a couple months ago. I like to change my desktop wallpaper every week or so, usually to funny things I find online. Some pictures look great filling the whole screen. Others are better centered as a smaller picture in the middle of the screen (e.g., the full screen version results in a warped picture or causes part of the picture to be cut off, or it's just too "in your face" for full screen, etc.). I was able to switch back and forth from "stretch" to "center" in XP without a problem. I'm not having success in Windows 7.

Here is what I've done: select a picture from my Pictures folder, open it (default viewer is Windows Photo Viewer), right click on the image, select "set as desktop background," and presto, the desktop background becomes a full-screen version of the picture. However, it's blurry and cut off in full screen. So I went to Control Panel, Change Desktop Background, and it displays my picture with a drop-down menu that has options for fill, fit, stretch, tile, and center. It's already set to center even though the picture is filling the screen. I tried each of the other options, hitting "save changes" each time, and none of the options changed the display at all. Where am I going wrong?

Thanks!!

Hi Kari,

Thanks so much for your quick reply! The method you described is the method I used to change the desktop wallpaper when I had XP. The reason I started doing it differently when I switched to Windows 7 is because the control panel doesn't seem to "see" the pictures. I have a folder entitled "My Pictures." It contains lots of pictures (mostly JPEG) as well as numerous subfolders folders full of pictures (e.g., "Camping Trip 7-14-13"). It sees the folders, but not the individual pictures. I tried copying a picture to a different folder on my desktop, tried to navigate to it through the control panel, and again it couldn't see the JPEG image.

I've found a couple of work-arounds, but they suck. The control panel can see folders full of pictures, just not individual pictures in the My Pictures file that aren't filed in subfolders. As an experiment, I used the control panel to navigate to My Pictures and selected a random file (Camping Trip 7-14-13). It then opened up all 6 pictures in that file; all were pre-selected with checkmarks (I assume this is for the slideshow option). So, I went back into the My Pictures file, created a folder called "Potential Wallpapers," and moved a good 30 images or so into it. Then I used the control panel to navigate to that folder, selected it, and the control panel showed all of the images, pre-selected with checkmarks. I chose "unselect all," found the image I wanted, selected it, and SUCCESS! The image is now centered. Why this sucks: the control panel shows thumbnails of the images without titles. I didn't see any way to change that. Sifting through 30-plus tiny thumbnails to find the picture I wanted was painstaking.

So then I tried something else, and it sucked less. I went to My Pictures, created a new folder (I just left it named New Folder), and then moved the image I wanted into that folder. I then used the control panel to navigate to My Pictures, selected New Folder, and it popped up with just that picture. So I can move the picture I want for my desktop background into that file prior to selecting it via the control panel every week. That's less of a hassle than sifting through tiny thumbnails with no titles, but it's still an extra step. Never had this problem with XP. Is this a quirk of Windows 7 or just some setting that I'm unaware of?

THANKS!! It's nice at least to be able to center desktop wallpapers again. :)