Wallpaper 101

Recently asked to review how to customize some Windows 8 laptops with pretty and cool background pictures also known as 'wallpaper' as part of some home school training. We found two methods, each with their own advantages.

Method 1: Right+click > Set as Wallpaper. Pretty much any image you can view on the internet or from your own photo collection can be set to be your personal wallpaper. Image search on Google or try a webpage like interfacelift.com to find and view an image you like. Then you can Right+click > Save Image to get it somewhere onto your computer, for example saved into your Pictures folder. Final step is to find and open the picture, where you can Right+click > Set as Desktop Background!

this was a favorite choice Dec 2014

For extra credit .. you can create a small library of favorite pictures, say of cats with horses or horses with cats and make a wallpaper slide show from those favorites .. Right+click on empty part of desktop and select Personalize > Desktop Background to get a screen like this:

use screen like this to select images for a wallpaper slide show ..

Check the images you like and then click the Save changes  button and .. Voila! The main advantage here is complete control over what and when.

Method 2: Use a customized Windows Theme .. click windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wallpaper or you can .. Right+click on empty part of desktop and select Personalize > Get More Themes Online. If you like one of the prepared themes, click the Download button, once downloaded click on the .themepack file to install and use it .. Easy Peasy, The advantage here is that all the think work is done for you, with the only disadvantage in not being able to pick and choose what pictures you want to use or see ..

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