Adjusting the Size of a Background Image in Windows - Quick Start Guide

How to adjust the background image

If you are choosing an image and don't know how to filter by resolution, but if you already have a background image and want to adjust its size, it will be a little more complicated.

The first thing is to know how Windows handles the background image you have. If the image has a different shape than the screen.

To decide what Windows will do with the image you have already selected, you need to read and follow the following simple steps:

1. Right click on the desktop e select "Personalization". (Alternatively, you can go to Control Panel> Appearance and Personalization> Personalization)
2. Here you will see your arguments. At the bottom, you will see a tab that says "Desktop Background". Click on it.
3. In «Image position», select the appropriate option.

If the Windows option still doesn't look right, you need to find your wallpaper image file and resize it with a program that suits your needs.

If you already know where the image is, you can skip this section, if not, you can find it by following these simple steps:

1. Right-click on the desktop and select "Personalization". (Alternatively, you can go to Control Panel> Appearance and Personalization> Personalization)
2. Here you will see your arguments. At the bottom, you will see a tab that says "Desktop Background"
3. Under this tab, there is the name of fillet picture, write it down.
4. Open the menu in Windows.
5. In the bar "Search programs and files", enter the file name and wait
6. When the image appears, right-click on it and then click » Open file path ».

You can also insert a GIF as your computer wallpaper. The possibilities are endless. If you share your computer with other people, you may be interested in knowing how to prevent others from changing the wallpaper.

Fill in

It is used to stretch a small image, compress a high resolution one and change the aspect ratio. Which causes the background to fit the bezels of our monitor.

Regular

It will help in case of very large images or with different resolution from our monitor; It usually happens that when applied as a background the edges of the image are on the outside and only a central part of it is visible.

Here we can use this option with which we can see the whole image when we use it as a «background» and the empty parts will be filled with a solid color.

Expand

Useful when you want to select a small low resolution image, adapting it so that it can be seen on the whole monitor, even if stretching images with few details you may notice a lack of sharpness, so it is advisable select wallpapers with a good resolution as long as the screen can show it correctly.

Mosaic

 Tool that will help us to repeat the same image in the width of our monitor, thus filling in the empty spaces.

City Center

It consists of using the image in its original size, placing it in the entire center of our desktop and filling the rest of the screen with a solid color.

What is the ideal size for a wallpaper?

The standard size of an image to ensure one good background setting is the resolution 1024 x 768, but currently we find more variety of monitors, so it is better to know the aspect ratio. 

Most current screens work in the well-known 16,9 "widescreen" format in this one type of screen, the best is to use images of 1020 x 1080 pixels, but we also have older 4,3 'square' monitors where the ideal is 800 × 600 pixels.

Although there are exceptions where larger images can be used, it will all depend on both aspect ratio of the monitor and resolution which is capable of displaying, both from the size of the image. These are the most used formats today, although there are also manufacturers who make monitors of different sizes and their ideal formats for backgrounds are as follows:

5.4. (1280x1024)

16.10 (1280×800) (1440×900)

5.3. (800×480) (1280×768)

3.2 (1152 × 768) (1440 × 960) (2000 × 1333)

How to change the login image

To give a personal touch to our session in Windows we have to go to the start menu, then we go to the configuration, we enter the account aggregation and then we will have the account information available.

We select to create an image and proceed to search for the one of our preference or we can take a photo directly if we have a camera connected to the PC; With this procedure we can change our account picture which we will see at the beginning, but if what we want is to change the background image, when we want to access we have two options to choose from: a flat color or an Image.

Flat color

To establish a flat color background in the Windows login we have to go to the registry editor, open the start button and type "regedit" to get to the path:

HKEY _LOCAL _MACHINE Software Policies Microsoft Windows SystemSystem

Next we will create a DWORD value and we will call it DisableLogonBackgroundImage, we attribute 00000001 to this value, this will be enough to see a flat color as a background in the login screen.

By image

To choose a custom image as wallpaper on the home screen, we go to settings, then let's enter the customization option , click on the lock screen to proceed with the examination of the computer and search for the image of our preference. 

Once the lock image is selected, we must activate the option «show the background image of the lock screen on the login screen» so that an image of your choice is assigned on the screen where your user shows before starting the session.

What needs to be considered?

Before adjusting the wallpaper, you need to take several things into consideration, such as the screen size. Your desktop takes up all the screen space, but the image you choose can be bigger or smaller then you will need to know the size of your monitor first. But it's not enough to measure your monitor in centimeters, you need to know how many pixels will fit on it.

If you have a laptop, you can see it on the label. Otherwise, you can go to the Control Panel, then:

1. Go to "Hardware and Sound"
2. Go to "Screen"
3. On the left, click "Adjust resolution"
4. Don't touch anything, just look at the card "Resolution" and write down the numbers it says. Order is important.
5. If you have more than one screen, click on the "Display" tab and select the others, then repeat step 4.

Now that you know your desktop size, when choosing an ideal image, you should try to make it roughly that size. You can download images of different genres for free on Microsoft's official website.

Keep in mind that what matters when viewing these resolutions is the aspect ratio of the image - the ratio of an image's height to its width.

For example, a 2 × 2 image will look good on a 4 × 4 and 8 × 8 screen, but not on an 8 × 4 screen, because the ratio of height to width is not the same. You can use a calculator to calculate the aspect ratio of your monitor and compare it more easily with the image you want to use.