Free Desktop Wallpapers and Screensavers
Reviews and ratings of quality, hand-picked, websites
Screensavers
• www.screensavers.com
Headers: Free Screensavers, Free Wallpapers
Huge range of free screensavers and wallpapers. When you download, don't forget to un-check the box for the Starware toolbar - unless of course you want it! It contains a pop-up blocker, weather information, dictionary, Smileytown and highlight.
Saver Forge 
• www.bouffler.freeserve.co.uk/Screensavers.htm
Program Type: Free Screensaver Maker
This freeware program allows you to make slideshow screensavers of your favourite pictures. Very easy to use. The program will create and install the screensaver for you, all at the same time.
Platform: Windows
Desktopography
http://desk08.customize.org
Headers: Free Wallpapers
Contributed by designers - there are some pretty stylish wallpapers to choose from here in a wide variety of file sizes.
Earth Wallpapers
www.earthwallpapers.org
Headers: Free Wallpapers
Very nice earth images available for download in 9 difference resolutions.
Free Wallpapers
www.freewallpapers.to
Headers: Free Wallpapers
Great selection of wallpapers from puppies to the space shuttle, plus some very good digital art images.
The Mind's Eyes
www.themindseyes.com
Headers: Free Wallpapers
Large range of wallpapers to suit alll tastes including 3D and fractal pictures. Only the 800x600 sizes are free - to get the larger images you need to subscribe.
PC-Wallpapers
www.pc-wallpapers.co.uk
Headers: Free Desktop Wallpapers
Excellent range including art and photographic images. Plus some great user created images! Get you creative juices flowing and get your name in print. All images are downloadable in 1027x768 or 800x600 sizes. You can also have images sent to your mobile.
Screensavers-Free
www.screensavers-free.co.uk
Headers: Free Screensavers
Great range of pretty cool (not to mention, free) animated screensavers for download. All screensavers have been animated with flash actionscript. Choose from a variety of themes such as seasonal screensavers, digital art, aquariums and more. All screensavers are virus, spyware and adware checked plus you don't have to worry about additional programs being installed on your computer - you just download the screensaver you want. Very nice. Donate if you're feeling generous.
Visual Paradox
www.visualparadox.com
Headers: Free 3D Desktops Wallpaper
Probably my favourite wallpaper website. The images are first class and are available in 3 sizes. Includes photographic and digital images.
VladStudio
www.vladstudio.com/home
Headers: Desktop Wallpapers, Dual Monitor Wallpapers
Excellent! All of these wallpapers here are made by Vlad Gerasimov, artist and computer expert. Choose low, high quality or widescreen in 5 different sizes. Plus there is a section for those of you with 2 monitors - you do, however, have to subscribe to get these.
JoBlo
www.joblo.com
Headers: Movie Wallpapers
Most of the popular films are represented here. Choose from 3 sizes.
For wallpaper newbies (Windows users)
There are lots of websites offering free wallpaper for your desktop. These websites are useful in that they generally offer wallpapers in "desktop" sizes (e.g. 800x600 or 1024x768 pixels) so that the whole of your screen is filled. But whenever you see a picture on the web you would like as a desktop image you can always right click the image to set as a desktop background:
Internet Explorer |
Firefox |
Firefox gives you the chance to decide whether you want the image to be centred, tiled or stretched. Also, Firefox at this point allows you to change the colour of the background for those cases where the image is smaller than your desktop.
Internet Explorer, however, will immediately set the image as the desktop.
If you want to alter your desktop settings, right click anywhere on the desktop and choose properties at the bottom of the menu that appears. The Display Properties window appears and from here you can change your screensaver, desktop wallpaper and appearance, amongst other things. If you have never looked at Display Properties before, the b
est way to see what you can do is to play around with your settings.
To change your wallpaper settings, choose the "desktop" tab and explore to see what happens if you change position and colour. This is also the place to be if you want to browse your computer for any of your own images to set as a desktop.
If you don't like the original size of the image you have chosen, or you would like to alter it in any way, then it is possible to change it. There are a couple of ways of doing this fairly easily. One is to use to "save" option when you right click your image (see above). The other way is to use the "copy" option.
Copy an Image
Right click the image in your browser and click "copy" if you are using Internet Explorer or "copy image" if you are using Firefox.
The image is now on your computer's clipboard, which means you can paste the image into any sort of photo editing program you want. If you don't have one we recommend Irfanview which is a free photo viewer and editor, or else see our Free Photo Editing Software page.
To paste the image simply left click "edit" (top left in Irfanview and most photo editors) and choose "paste". 
You can now resize the picture by choosing resize from the "Image" menu. If you are using Irfanview, you can immediately set it as your desktop background (options - set as wallpaper).
Otherwise, click "File" and then "save as". Choose a name for your picture and a destination on your computer. If, like me, you are a bit of a desktop wallpaper - o - phil you might even want to start a folder in which to keep your favourites. The image on the right is one I sometimes use on my own desktop. It is an image I downloaded from St Petersburg Academy of Art Foundation which you can find here: http://academart.com.
Save an Image
Right click the image in your browser, click "save image as" (or "save picture as" if you have Internet Explorer). The Save Image window appears.
Navigate to the folder you would like to save the picture in. You will probably want to save it into My Documents. If you do not have a suitable folder, you can make a new one easily by clicking the third icon along at the top of the "save image" window. Name you folder anything you like.
You can then open the image up and resize it using your favourite photo editor.
Once you have saved the edited image, you can then set it as a desktop background by using Display Properties as described above.
Good places to get desktop sized artwork
Manfredi Beninati
• http://manfredibeninati.com
Headers: Paintings, Collages, Drawings, Sculputures,
Etherial artwork from the contemporary Italian artist Manfredi Beninati, sometimes called "The painter of dreamland".
Beninati was born in 1970 in Palermo, Sicily, and now lives and works in Palermo, Rome and Los Angeles.
Academy of Art Foundation, St Petersburg
• http://academart.com/
We think that the art here is stunning. If you want to have a look at the work of some of Russia's top up and coming artists, head over to the St Petersburg Art Academy.
The Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci
• www.drawingsofleonardo.org
Over 50 good sized images of some of Leonardo's drawings. Some of them are a bit gruesome - Leonardo was very interested in how the juman body works - but for anyone interested in the works of the great man, this is an excellent resource.
Chinese Paintings
• www.chinesepaintings.com
This website is actually a US gallery with original Chinese paintings and caligraphy artworks for sale. Exquisite artwork by Chinese artists.
The image shown on the left is a detail from Longevity Cranes and Lotus by Chinese artist Lou Dahua, who specialises in birds and flowers.
Vladimir Kush
• www.vladimirkush.com
Wonderfull surrealist paintings from Vladimir Kush, the new Salvador Dali (in my view). And not only that, the superb website design alone makes this a worthwhile "click".
Vladimir Kush was born in 1965 in Russia and produces paintings and sculptures. The painting shown on the left is called African Sonata.
Musical Iconography
•
www.greatbassviol.com/iconography.html
Very large number of high resolution images of paintings featuring musical instruments from artists through the centuries. You can browse the artist A-Z.
Joseph Lorusson
• www.josephlorussofineart.com
Fine art from American painter Joseph Lorusso, whose style is vaguely reminiscent of Hopper. You can enjoy Lorusso's paintings online as well as buy an original. The images are also big enough to use as wallpapers.
Make your own screensavers
If you would like to create your own slideshow screensavers, we recommend SaverForge, a freeware program for windows. You can download it here: http://www.bouffler.freeserve.co.uk/Screensavers.htm.
This 
program is extremely simple to use. Just add your favourite pictures (you can put them into a folder first and select the whole folder if you like) and then save your screensaver. Then click on the icon (second from last on the right hand side) that will create an installation file which you can access from your screensaver window*. You will be asked for the location of the screensaver you want to create an installation file for - just navigate to the screensaver you saved.
* Right click anywhere on the desktop and click properties; then click screensaver and look at the drop down box. Navigate to you new screensaver.
