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Windows Vista Ultimate wallpapers remixed

March 10th, 2007 by Long Zheng
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Last Thursday, the Windows Ultimate team released two Windows Vista Ultimate branded wallpapers featuring strands and a backlit Vista orb to the public for download. They were very cool wallpapers to begin with, but had severe gradient blocking and the Ultimate branding which might not appeal to some people. So I took the liberty of editing the wallpapers to give it a little visual makeover.

Windows Vista trends wallpaper

For the Vista strands wallpaper, I removed the Ultimate branding, fixed up a LOT of the gradient blocking and that huge ugly patch of black in the middle of the picture. I also made the background darker, and brightened the strands for it to out more. Download 16×10 version / 4×3 version.

Windows Vista “Start” orb wallpaper

For the backlight “Start” orb wallpaper, I removed the Ultimate branding, tried to fix up some of the gradient blocking and added a slight ‘aurora’ color filter to make it a little more vibrant. Download 16×10 version / 4×3 version.

They’re only available at one resolution, the highest, at 2560×1600 (30″). I would assume most people don’t have a larger monitor, so you can downscale them pretty easily. Thanks to Andre for creating some 4×3 aspect ratio versions. Enjoy.

Comments for "Windows Vista Ultimate wallpapers remixed"

  1. Mitchel Tyrell

    Mar 10th, 2007 at 3:46 pm

    Sweet, setting the first one as my background now.

  2. Anthony

    Mar 10th, 2007 at 7:56 pm

    Wow Long they are awesome! I was going to download the official version and simply black out the ‘Ultimate’ text (since Premium is my flavour) but you did one better and cleaned it up. kudos!

  3. iBenshi

    Mar 11th, 2007 at 12:44 am

    Great! Wanted to do this myself but haven’t got the time to do it. Thanks!

  4. Mike Lee

    Mar 11th, 2007 at 1:24 am

    Excellent … I’d already removed the word “Ultimate” from the strands wallpaper but hadn’t got round to sorting out the dodgy blocky background. Thanks. :)

  5. Marcpodi

    Mar 11th, 2007 at 4:24 am

    in my LCD, edited regions are obvious. They looked grainy and to the strands, they glow but the auroras show layered patches of black.

  6. Long Zheng

    Mar 11th, 2007 at 4:23 pm

    @Marcpodi: Your monitor gamma might be very different to the standard Windows setting then. The grain is visible because it reduces gradient banding.

  7. Andrew F.

    Mar 11th, 2007 at 5:17 pm

    Erm…sorry to sound like a selfish idiot…but could there be a 5:4 (1280×1024) version? I have an old monitor…

    Incidentally, why is that widescreen ratio called 16×10 by just about every source I’ve seen? It should be 8×5, considering the usual practice of reducing each side as far as possible…

  8. Berno

    Mar 11th, 2007 at 5:39 pm

    Wallpaper update with Long Zheng’s version! Thank you, Sir :)

  9. Long Zheng

    Mar 11th, 2007 at 6:05 pm

    @Andrew F: I think you can use the 4×3 version can’t you? It will just crop off a little from the left and right (or top and bottom, I can’t remember).

    The widescreen ratio is called 16×10 because it is easier to compare with 16×9. 8×5 vs 16:9 doesn’t sound like a very fair comparison. ;)

  10. imran

    Mar 12th, 2007 at 6:37 pm

    Good job, thanks nice.

  11. bling

    Apr 27th, 2007 at 3:31 am

    cool thang!! thanx mr. long for these wallpapers. now my desktop looks more kinda my personality..lol . anyways they r really nice and hope to see more cool stuff .. thanx again..

  12. Alex

    Jul 17th, 2007 at 2:28 am

    Great wallpaper! Remix some more:)

  13. Owie

    Sep 9th, 2007 at 11:53 pm

    The wallpapers are so cool… i have in on my pc, it’s got an LCD monitor so it looks grea!!! thanks mate!!

    owie, UK

  14. Spam Banjo

    Sep 21st, 2007 at 8:42 pm

    Very nice backgrounds. I modified it slightly for my Dual screen. Looks awesome! Thanks

  15. Garrett

    Nov 19th, 2007 at 4:26 am

    i downloaded both of them, they rock!

  16. Just ME

    Dec 7th, 2007 at 1:55 pm

    These wallpapers freakin rock!! Good job!! :D

  17. Abdulmohsen

    Jan 23rd, 2008 at 5:18 am

    thank you from Saudi Arabia

  18. ArrasB

    Feb 7th, 2008 at 5:36 am

    Thank from Poland.Good job.

  19. AB

    Mar 23rd, 2008 at 4:51 am

    Thank you from India :D Good Work

  20. BarBor

    Apr 6th, 2008 at 8:59 pm

    thanks … Great work …. thank u from UAE

  21. prateek singh

    Apr 11th, 2008 at 5:29 pm

    thanks from India.
    these wallpapers are pretty cool!!!
    great work!!

  22. rex

    May 7th, 2008 at 9:08 pm

    thanks…from Philippines

  23. shadow

    May 11th, 2008 at 1:29 am

    thanks…from england

  24. JDuVall

    May 14th, 2008 at 5:58 am

    the BEST, thank you, you did an amazing job cleaning this up, undetectable!

  25. karty

    Jun 10th, 2008 at 8:42 pm

    good site for wallpapers

  26. sally

    Jul 24th, 2008 at 11:57 pm

    a quanto pare sono l’unica italiana qui si vede che non conoscono ancora questo programma:)

  27. dlamb

    Aug 13th, 2008 at 2:47 pm

    Thats great I did the exact same thing before I saw this, lol

Leave a Reply

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