The terms wallpaper and desktop picture refer to an image used as a background on a computer screen, usually for the desktop of a graphical user interface. 'Wallpaper' is the term used in Microsoft Windows, while the Mac OS calls it a 'desktop background' (prior to Mac OS X, the term desktop pattern was used to refer to a small pattern that was repeated to fill the screen).
Images used as computer wallpaper are usually raster graphics with the same size as the display resolution (for example 1024×768 pixels, or 1280×1024 pixels) in order to fill the whole background.
Many screen resolutions are proportional in a 4:3 ratio, so an image scaled to fit in a different-sized screen will still be the correct shape, although that scaling may impact quality. Common wallpaper resolutions are 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024 and 1600x1200.
Users with widescreen (16:9 or 16:10) monitors have different aspect ratio requirements for wallpaper, although images designed for standard (4:3) monitors can often be scaled or cropped to the correct shape without undue loss of quality.
Wallpapers are sometimes available in double-width versions (e.g. 2560×1024) for displaying on multi-monitor computers, where the image appears to fill two monitors.
Some display systems allow unconventionally-proportioned images (1:1, 2:1, or even 1:3) to be scaled without change of proportion, to fit the screen, whether it be 16:9 or 4:3. The image would be sized just large enough that one pair of edges touch the edges of the screen, but not all four, as this would unduly distort the image. In these cases, the system's "default" background color is visible around the other two sides of the image.
Another common option, particularly for images much smaller than the resolution of the display, is having the image displayed multiple times like a series of tiles. This avoids the distortion of scaling.
PNG and JPEG format are common. Some desktop systems, such as Mac OS (version 8.6 or later), KDE (version 3.4 or later), and GNOME, support vector wallpapers (PICT in Mac and SVG in KDE and GNOME). This has the advantage that a single file may be used for screens of any size, or stretched across several screens, without loss of quality.
Most display systems are capable of specifying a single colour to use as the background in place of a wallpaper, and some (such as KDE or GNOME) allow colour-gradients to be specified. Early versions of Mac OS and Microsoft Windows allowed for small repeating patterns to tile the desktop.
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