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artistjoh Author

Level 2

177 points

Is The Aurora In The Snow Leopard Default Wallpaper Real?

Curiosity has set in... the aurora in Leopard was beautiful and I always assumed it was a real photograph. The Snow Leopard version seems to look a little different (maybe my imagination) which raises the question is it a real photo or a Photoshop creation and if real what is it called?

Macbook Pro Hi-Res (2008) + iBook G3 + iPod vid 60 GB + iPod 160GB + iPhone 3GS, Mac OS X (10.5.8), MBP 2.5GHz 4GB RAM + G3 500 MHz 384 MB RAM

Posted on Jan 6, 2011 11:03 AM

18 replies

jsd2

Level 5

6,245 points

Jan 8, 2011 3:31 AM in response to artistjoh

We'll probably never know, but It may have come from someone who looked at the Orion Nebula for inspiration, and then constructed an imaginary "Aurora Borealis" image completely from scratch. I just found this interesting tutorial on how one might approach this:
[Leopard's Aurora Borealis wallpaper in GIMP|http://www.webdesign.org/raster-graphics/gimp/leopard-s-aurora-borealis-wa llpaper-in-gimp.17153.html].

artistjoh Author

Level 2

177 points

Jan 8, 2011 5:52 AM in response to jsd2

If the star patterns weren't conclusive as to the artist's hand that tutorial is the final nail in the coffin of the belief that some part of the image might be real. BTW I wanted to upload a comparison image and could not figure out how to upload an image here. Is there a trick I am missing or it it that only those who make a lot of posts are able to include images in posts?

jsd2

Level 5

6,245 points

Jan 8, 2011 7:13 AM in response to artistjoh

Anyone can include an image in a post. To do this, you first need to upload the image file to a separate online host, and then reference it. See Ali Brown's post [here|http://discussions.info.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12100919&#1210091 9].

I use TinyPic for this, and the last image I posted is actually located here:
http://i52.tinypic.com/2qncaoi.jpg

To have the image appear in my post, I typed that URL between exclamation marks:
\!http://i52.tinypic.com/2qncaoi.jpg!

Is The Aurora In The Snow Leopard Default Wallpaper Real?