pvcblue

Hey Everyone - I have 9 different wallpapers available for download on my website for your use! Gary

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Aussiesmurf

Thanks Gary...I love the driver one ...super cute....



Meagan

pvcblue

Thanks Meagan!!!! I will be adding more as time goes by, probably turn into a whole page of it's own. Suggestions on which smurf to make into wallpaper are most WELCOME!!! (I just added 6 more by the way)

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Aussiesmurf

Baseball smurfette....I love her...yay



Meagan

Eep²

Any reason why they're GIFs (limited to 8-bit, 256 colors)? Plus, being desktop wallpapers, they should be compressed very little and be BMP format (zipped to save space during transfer).

pvcblue

Actually Eep2 - gifs are a smaller transfer file than BMPs, (the house image saved at gif is 396kb and a bmp format would be 769kb) and any computer running windows 95 to XP can use gifs, jpegs, and bmps for wallpaper. Being as most sites that offer wallpaper of any kind use either jpeg or gif images as the file open in a new window for the user to preview and download. Zip is old and most sites do not use it as most internet users have some form of high speed connection.

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Eep²

No, you don't understand. The zipped BMP is just to keep the file size low for transfer and zip format is certainly in WIDESPREAD use THROUGHOUT the Net. Again, GIFs are limited to 256 colors so appear grainy compared to BMP, JPG, and most other image formats. GIFs should NOT be used for desktop wallpaper for this reason, as they tend to look like crap. You should, at the very least, redo your images in JPG format (don't just convert from GIF since the GIFs already have low color depth).

pvcblue

Uh yes I think I do - I have been doing graphics for over eight years now.

Uh no - the majority of sites offering any kind of desktop wallpaper(85-90% of them) be it celebrities, cutesy stuff, xxx, or whatever offer thier product either in gif or jpeg as a option that opens another window( or in the same window) for preview) to which the user right clicks on the image(if they don'thave the image toolbar feature on thier browser) and downloads the image. Zip is usually involved when they are offering a graphic that is too big even for high speed, or if they are offering it in a package, or if they do not want web bots to crawl thier site, or if they want to infect your computer with advert crud like gator. I like the fact so many people like to come to my site and wouldn't want to have them go away thinking I might be trying to give them stuff (ie. adware, viruses, etc) that makes me stay away from sites. For those who prefer jpg over gif I have added jpgs, even tho it does nothing to enhance the image any. By the way did you know that the biggest program for unzipping zipped files is no longer free? Now it(winzip) is only a 30/90 day trial version after which you have to pay 29.99 US$ to use it. Why would I ask my fellow smurfers to spend unecessary money?

Well as I said I have been doing this for over eight years now, as well as my husband being a graphics designer for a advertising company(30 years), and we have discussed this at length. If the gif looks grainy to you, maybe that is because you need a new computer screen? Looks nice and fine to others that have downloaded the images and myself, the images have a image effect applied to them to make them appear painted and on canvas and that may be your problem with the way they look. Jpegs are more for print work or work you want to show realism and photorealism. Gifs are the prefered use for cartoonlike imagery and lower sized web graphics. Thank you for your comments, as harsh as they may sound I am sure you didn't intend them that way. If mine sound that way I don't mean it that way either. Maybe I should just stop offering smurfy clipart?

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