Why are my wall paper downloads blurry?

Question

Level 1

12 points

Why are my wall paper downloads blurry?

It is hit or miss sometime? Sometimes images are fine and then sometimes when I download wall paper from the internet, set it as my wallpaper and the image is blurry. I could download two identical images, both the same files size, resolution and one will be fine and the other blurry. This happens both on my iMac and MacPro. The resolutions are 1920X 1080 and they are blurry. If I take both those images and set as wallpaper on my Windows machine, they both work. I don't get it, what am I doing wrong. I bought my iMac last October and has a Nivdia Card 750.

Ox

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

Posted on May 2, 2015 8:09 AM

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Answer 1

fjwhiston

Level 3

742 points

May 2, 2015 8:24 AM in response to oxe

.

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Answer 2

babowa

Level 9

78,097 points

May 2, 2015 9:01 AM in response to oxe

What is the native resolution of your iMac? (System Preferences > Displays) If it is larger (higher pixel size) than the size you are downloading, it will be blurry. My 27" iMac is a 2012 and its native resolution is 2560 x 1440, so anything smaller blown up to fit would not be a crisp image.

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Answer 3

May 2, 2015 12:35 PM in response to oxe

Not all custom wallpaper websites have good pictures for Macs. The pics will be perfect on a PC but blurry on a Mac, depending on the size of your screen. If you have not already done so, try to stay w/custom Mac desktop pic websites. Their pics tend to look very crisp on a Mac.

When bored, I make my own desktop pics. I either paint, draw or use pics already on my HD.

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Answer 4

oxe Author

Level 1

12 points

May 3, 2015 5:32 AM in response to babowa

This 15.4 MacBook Pro is 1440X900 and my 21.5 iMac is 1920X1280.

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Answer 5

babowa

Level 9

78,097 points

May 3, 2015 8:02 AM in response to oxe

Well, with the iMac, the result may not be proportionally correct if you have an image that is 1920 wide and 1080 high, so it would be stretched to 1280 high. Not sure about the Macbook Pro except that the aspect ratios aren't the same; read about those here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio_%28image%29#4:3_standard

Your best bet is to get something that is the same aspect ratio and size as your screen.

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