Wallpaper quality is low

[Collin2011]

For the longest time I have noticed when saving wallpapers from the internet or photoshop and setting them as a desktop wallpaper it always creates "artifacts". Artifacts are small pixels forming around outlines and such in an image.

When on the internet the pictures on crystal clear. I can't understand why when I set a wallpaper the quality drops? When I open the picture in a photoviewer they are still crystal clear. It's when I set them as a wallpaper is when they turn to crap.

This happens on Windows 7 too. I dual boot.

I have an example below. The left side is a screenshot of the desktop when I apply the wallpaper. I split the wallpaper down the middle and merged a clean version so you can see a half and half of what I am talking about.

Left = Pixelated / Right = Crystal Clear

 

[Bongo]

You never replied to your last thread about the same thing.
http://www.sevenforums.com/customization/296917-fuzzy-wallpapers.html

Jerry

 

[Collin2011]

Well seeing as I don't want to bump a really old topic. I have just now downloaded infranview and tried what was said. The pixelation still occurs.

 

[ThrashZone]

You might upload the actual file and not a screen shot of it so we might be able to test it,
Cheers.

 

[lehnerus2000]

Have you tried using bmp or png files instead of jpg files?

 

[Collin2011]

Here is the wallpaper. 1600x900 and 1920x1080 versions

 

[A Guy]

Collin, I'm not seeing the degradation on my system. I use Irfanview always to set wallpaper, as I did your image. I compared the image in Irfanview to my desktop. At least on my system, no change?

A Guy

 

[Collin2011]

After some research I have learned the following.

Windows 7 and 8 compress wallpapers in JPEG format. When they compress them it takes a massive quality hit. Now that I am saving as PNG the wallpapers are crystal clear.

 

[A Guy]

Ironically, an original "fix" was indeed to use high quality jpegs

http://www.sevenforums.com/customization/22086-desktop-backgrounds-quality-degradation.html

Also, it has been discussed that letting windows set the wallpaper reduces the quality as it resizes/compresses the image. Hence my original Irfanview suggestion.

I'm at a loss why it did not work for you.

A Guy

 

[Collin2011]

I don't know why either. In-fact all high quality formats including BMP and TIF didn't work.

 

[boohbah]

i have noticed a small difference when setting wallpapers from "personalisation" and from opening a pic in explorer then right clicking and setting as desktop background.
the quality seems better if its set from explorer.
have personalisation set to fill or whatever suits the image first ,then set it from explorer,
see if it makes any difference for you

 

[AMDphreak]

UPDATE: I found an answer here: https://superuser.com/questions/507097/stop-windows-8-from-converting-wallpapers-to-low-quality-jpgs

i have noticed a small difference when setting wallpapers from "personalisation" and from opening a pic in explorer then right clicking and setting as desktop background.
the quality seems better if its set from explorer.
have personalisation set to fill or whatever suits the image first ,then set it from explorer,
see if it makes any difference for you

I have not. I just did this in Windows 10 and the quality is still not improved.
I believe Windows caches its own copies of these images, but in my case it may have an expired cached copy from when I used the image with a lower resolution monitor. Setting it via Explorer did not improve the quality. Sample images attached. One of screenshot. Other of original file

from Imgur:
https://imgur.com/a/Nww0p

Original

Desktop

 

[lehnerus2000]

I think Windows re-samples images.

I have a library of wallpapers in png format.
Some of the pictures display jpg artefacts when they are used as Desktop wallpaper (in W7).