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Windows XP Bliss UPDATE: Azul needed too!

Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 6:10 pm
by Geo
Hey there guys, I'm sure most if not all of you will recognise the following image:

Image

Well the copy of that image that ships with XP is only 800x600 and Google yields no results when searching for a higher resolution version.

I was just wondering if there's any technical way of enlarging that image to say, 1440x900 or above without it looking terrible.

Windows scales wallpapers horrible, and I'm no expert with Photoshop.

Can any of you help?

Oh and obviously I'm aware some height data will have to be lost for a widescreen resolution... so if anyone can make this bigger, keep it 4:3 for the moment!
Thanks in advance guys!

Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 7:33 pm
by HPDarkness
The Highest resolution version I have is 1280x1024 :/
http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/7829/bliss1cz.jpg

Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 7:34 pm
by Aumaan Anubis
Must it be the exact image?

Google images features a multitude of variations of the "bliss" image that are larger, and therefore, the "enlargening," or in some cases, shrinking, I suspect, of the image would result in less "terribleness."

Or so I suspect.

But I did the normal resizing in photoshop, without any extra fancy edits or whatnot, and it's not that bad. But I suspect you've probably already done that.

Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 3:34 am
by Geo
I'm pretty sure that 1280x1024 is upscaled, it's blurry as hell when viewed at its original size. =/

And yeah I've tried enlarging it in Photoshop with some minor sharpening and it still looks terrible.

I'm sure someone on here had a method of upscaling images and reducing how bad they looked.

Thanks anyway though guys.

Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 6:30 am
by Tural
Sup.
http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/251/blissil2.jpg


I just did a quick crop. If you'd like to tweak it yourself, you can download the 4510x3627, 25.8mb stock photograph here. (Wiki had a link to the high resolution image :3)

Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 2:39 pm
by WaeV
Anyone ever seen this image? Taken from the exact spot, six years later.

Image

Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 3:01 pm
by Tural
I noticed that in looking. It's very bland, and doesn't make the statement the photographer desired. Simply put, it's insignificant, and their attempt at a message was lost.

Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 3:07 pm
by ScottyGEE
Cool stuff.
It would have be pretty orsm being the photographer there. I'm sure that view woulda been cool

Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 4:38 pm
by bcnipod
I must agree with Tural on that, I personally don't like the "Bliss" picture but a lot is lost in that second one, it has nothing to me.

Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 7:21 am
by trepdimeflou
Tural wrote:I noticed that in looking. It's very bland, and doesn't make the statement the photographer desired. Simply put, it's insignificant, and their attempt at a message was lost.
I disagree. The "bland" look was probably exactly what they were going for. The most obvious message, whether intended by the photographer or not, is that the beauty and glamour of Windows XP, six years later, is lost. The low, oppressive sky coupled with a dreary colour palette are in all likelihood intentional.

You also have to take in mind the post-processing done to every commercially available stock photograph. This process increases the sharpness, clarity, and intensity of the colors in the photograph. In all reality, the bliss photograph started something like this:

Image

Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 1:56 pm
by antszy101
I completely agree with the above statement.

Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 2:03 pm
by WaeV
I disagree. The "bland" look was probably exactly what they were going for. The most obvious message, whether intended by the photographer or not, is that the beauty and glamour of Windows XP, six years later, is lost. The low, oppressive sky coupled with a dreary colour palette are in all likelihood intentional.
That's what I got from it. The name of the image is "After Windows".

Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 7:33 pm
by Tural
trepdimeflou wrote:I disagree. The "bland" look was probably exactly what they were going for. The most obvious message, whether intended by the photographer or not, is that the beauty and glamour of Windows XP, six years later, is lost. The low, oppressive sky coupled with a dreary colour palette are in all likelihood intentional.
I'm aware of that, that's what I addressed, I need not it be explained to me. I'm stating that their attempt at that message was poorly executed. Knowing the facts about the location hurts the ability to take the message strongly. A better image would be your example of it before processing, not the simple photograph of the scene with the vines growing. The landscape is a failure of execution, because it is covered with vines from the vineyard there. It does not serve to show the scenery as bland. The grass there is still green and thriving. :roll:

They're taking a picture of a vineyard, not of the hills, it is not the same execution. The sky there is the sole legitimate piece of their message.

Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 1:43 pm
by Geo
Thanks Tural. :)

Posted: Thu Dec 25, 2008 3:58 pm
by Geo
Back Again Guys!

This time I'm after a high(er) resolution version of the popular Azul wallpaper.

I've tried various searches and yielded no results.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Image

EDIT: I think this might be a tough one, Tural...

Posted: Thu Dec 25, 2008 4:24 pm
by ScottyGEE
Wow that shot is amazing. I would like that boat to be gone though...
I will also download this high resolution version if found.

Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2008 1:58 am
by Tural
Might be that the stock was never released. I'll keep looking, though.

Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2008 3:55 am
by Brendando
This may seem slightly offtopic, but a great site with lots if high res nature wallpapers is interfacelift.com - have a look over there for something you like, if that's the kind of thing your looking for: I'm using one of the wallpapers from there on my XP setup, and it's very reminiscent of the original wallpapers.

Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2008 11:03 am
by noscottno
The above person is correct. That site rocks!

Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2008 11:26 am
by bibbit
I didn't even know that wallpaper existed. I looked anyway but found nothing.