Allegheny College: Backgrounds

Windows: Right click on an empty area of your desktop and choose Properties. Click the Settings tab. In the Screen Area box you will see a message similar to 800 by 600 pixels (your numbers may vary). This is your screen resolution. If we don't have an image to match your resolution, choose the next largest image for best results.

Macintosh: Choose Control Panel from the Apple menu, and select Monitors & Sounds. In the Resolution box you will see your screen resolution highlighted. If we don't have an image to match your resolution, choose the next largest image for best results.

Mac OS X: Open System Preferences from the Dock or Apple menu and click on Displays. Click the Display tab, if necessary. Your current resolution is highlighted in the list of resolutions on the left. If we don't have an image to match your resolution, choose the next largest image for best results.

Will I harm my computer if I choose the wrong size image?

No. If you pick an image that's not the correct size, your computer may attempt to resize the image to make it fit your screen. If the image you chose was too small, it may not look very good when enlarged to fit. If the image you chose was too large, it will probably look just fine when resized. If you aren't sure which image to pick, we recommend you choose the 1024 x 768 size. It will look just fine on most screens.

I chose "Set as Wallpaper" on my windows computer, but the image isn't showing up as my background.

On some windows machines you need to do an extra step. Open the Control Panel and use the Screen control to select your background.

Can I use these pictures as a screensaver, too?

If you are using Mac OS X or Windows XP, you can use these images to create a screensaver without installing additional software. Simply follow the instructions below. If you are using other versions of Windows or Mac OS, there are many programs available which will create a screensaver from images saved on your hard drive. Many of these are shareware programs (that is, they can be downloaded from the web and registered for a small fee if you decide to keep the program).

Windows XP: Save the images in your My Pictures folder. Then right click on a blank area of your desktop and select Properties. Click the Screen Saver tab and select My Pictures Slideshow from the Screen Saver dropdown. Click Apply.

Mac OS X: Save the images in your Pictures folder. Then in System Preferences, choose Screensavers and select the Slide Show screensaver.

These images are nice, but I'd like to stop using them as my background. How do I do that?

Windows: Right click on an empty area in the desktop and click Properties. Click the Background tab and choose (None) from the list of backgrounds or wallpapers.

Macintosh (OS 8.0 -9.x): Choose Control Panel from the Apple menu, and select Appearance (or Desktop Pictures if you're not using OS 8.5 or higher). In the Appearance window, click Remove Picture.

Macintosh OS X: Open System Preferences from the Dock or Apple menu and click on Desktop. Select a different background to remove the image. Hint: the default OS X background image can be found in the Apple Background Images Collection.