HOME

 

 

 

 

 

By: Anthony Palmieri
April 28, 2006

Abstract:

The advancement in electronics including digital cameras now under $100 and personal computers for a few hundred dollars has enabled many home users to transform basic pictures into creative pictures. Now take those pictures and spice up your office and computer even more! This article will give you some basic ideas that will help you create fun and exciting screen savers and background images for your computer.

Creative Screensaver and Background Images

You sit at your computer for hours and hours and after a while all of those canned background images that came with your computer are a blur and of little interest. In many offices at home or the corporate work place people personalize the walls with photographs of their family and other interests that reflect their personality, that can be taken a step further. Imagine grabbing that first cup of coffee, or sitting on a long plane flight when you boot your computer up and you are greeted by a custom personal image. I am sure that even before the caffeine kicks in that you will smile as a result of this greeting. Many people take advantage of the basic click-and-shoot pictures on their computer, but lets use our imagination and open the door for you to create unique screen savers and images with the family pets and autos, to even family members, not necessarily in that order.

Spend anywhere from a few dollars on up and purchase a basic photo editing program and get started. There are even some shareware programs that will provide some limited capabilities as well to get your imagination going, but be cautious since creativity can be addictive. When the addiction grows you can feed it and go all out and get Adobe Photoshop with a vast set of features. The intent of this article is to give you a few ideas to develop your own creative images and experiment with to see what fits your personality and likes. We will focus on automobiles, although these ideas can be applied to family portraits, pictures of your loving pets, and even landscapes.

Special consideration must be given to a screen image versus a standard photograph that you will print or view. You must remember that this image will be used as a background, so it can not be too busy. Imagine using the city layout of Chicago as the background. Now put all of your folders and icons on tope of this image. Ouch, it will drive you nuts to look at that, never mind finding the folder that you want. Our approach is to have the image not too busy with the main focus in the center and then faded off to the edges of the screen where your folders most likely are.

As you look through the camera view finder imagine looking at your computer screen and consider the final composition. A few questions to consider are:

1. Will the car be a stand alone in the picture?
2. How busy is the background?
3. Will there be different elements of the car used?
4. Can parts of the background be cropped out and still have a pleasing image?
5. Can the car be used as both a background element as well as a foreground element?
…. and the list goes on.

Taking a digital picture does not cost you anything until you print it out, so I recommend that you take many pictures at different angles, and of all elements. Looking through the viewfinder gives you only one perspective of the final picture, but, using your mind will open the door to an unlimited world.

Once you have all of these pictures its time to start to create something unique. A few things to consider when looking and photographing a car:

1. Is there a large surface such as a sloping trunk with a minimal amount of details? If so, this may make a great background where you could overlay a side view of the car on the trunk. To add to the personalized component, keep the license place in the picture so it ties the picture to the owner.
2. Are there any distinctive features such as a massive open grill as on many pre 1965 cars? This may also make a great background to overlay a side view of the car in the grill. Keeping any logos or license plate adds to the personalized impact.
3. Many of the older cars have trim pieces that are art in themselves. Take for example a 1958 Bel Air. The front fenders and sides have bullet like trim that would make a great border.
4. Do not just focus on the exterior of the car, think about the interior. How about those detailed and distinctive dash boards and large bus like steering wheels. These also make a great backgrounds. Imagine the car centered in the steering wheel where you get a glimpse of the gages. Or for that fantasy effect for a performance car, edit the speedometer to show a high speed, and slightly blur the car to represent the speed.

This is a brief list of things to consider, and after a while when you look at something, your mind will run with the endless possibilities. Your biggest challenge will be to weed through those ideas and pick the best ones.

A screen background image does not need to be photographic quality, but high enough so it is not pixilated (little squares) or blurred. I typically use 100 DPI for a 17" screen.

For some examples of what is described here, refer to www.PalmieriConcepts.com in the "Screensavers" section. When you look at these examples, think how you can apply these to your own work.