This topic is outdated and no longer supported, but may still work. However I prefer everyone use my new Photoshop Free and Easy tutorials to make wallpapers now. Don't worry, no money or experience will be needed, plus you should get much better and faster results!
Making your own wallpapers is really easy and can be fun! I'll take you through the basics of making your own desktop wallpapers. You can also use these on your anime list!
Programs you'll need
For this, I'm using JASC Animation Shop. Which is a free trial and easy to download off Google. You can use any image/photo editing program to make wallpapers tho. I recommend this one for easy, decent looking ones. For whatever program you use, you can make them similarly to how I do below anyways.
note: Microsoft Paint can't be used for making wallpapers this way.
Images you'll need- get your render and your scenery!
You'll need a render of a character you like, and some scenery or backdrop to put your render against. Make sure your scenery is larger or near the same size at least as your desktop. Make sure the render isn't much smaller than that too. Go get your render and scenery for this step!
Whats a render? Some image files have a transparent background, and these are really useful for making cool layouts and wallpaper designs. They're called renders when they feature a character from an anime or game who has been "rendered" from where ever they came from. Its just an image of a character with no background, perfect for pasting against another backdrop.
Its important your render is the right file type and has a transparent background to it. PNGs and GIFs are image files that support transparent backgrounds. JPGs don't. They have to be downloaded as a PNG file and you can copy paste them into your image editing programs like Jasc. I get renders by Googling them, for example: C.C. Render. Go find a render of a character you like!
Jasc Animation shop can't make but can edit rendered images with outstanding results and is quite easy to use. Adobe Fireworks is ideal for it imo, and Photoshop as well. You'll have more color and enhancement options for those programs. For this tutorial, I'm using a C.C. render from the link.
Scenery? Scenery is what your character is going to be laid against. It cna be anything, and you can Google scenery or look that tag up on a imageboard like Danbooru.com or Konachan.com. I'm getting my scenery from Danbooru.
How to make the wallpaper with your render and scenery
Here's how I make a cool wallpaper with a render once I have one (this is being done on Jasc animation shop).
This is my render, its a C.C. one I got from that link above: C.C.
This is the scenery I'm using, I got it from Danbooru.com under scenery: Scenery
I first drag both of them into my JASC animation shop program. Just click and hold on the pics you're using and drag it into your program. You can also copy and paste the pics in the program. Or you can try "opening" them with the program, often under "File".
I copy and the C.C. render and paste it into the scenery (I can also drag the C.C. into the scenery). Afterwards, go to File and choose "Save frame as..". Save the format as a PNG file for best quality.
The result! Easy as pie!
Now I can save it (right click save frame as) and use it as my own desktop wallpaper! See here:
Other stuff
You can further customize your wallpaper with the cropping and resizing options in your image editing program.
See how many scenery wallpaper is 1400 px across, so to better fit a smaller com we can change it to something like 1024 px. A lot of computers have that resolution.
I use the resize option in my editing program.
Now its 1024 px across, and when C.C. is in it she looks even larger against the bg!
You can explore the other tools in your programs to do more. Macromedia Fireworks and PhotoShop have an awesome tool to increase the color saturation for even more bright beautiful backgrounds!
I'm trying to find Character rends but all of them have some white or black background, how do you get rid of them in another way other than to erase it carefully?
KnightsToFear said: I'm trying to find Character rends but all of them have some white or black background, how do you get rid of them in another way other than to erase it carefully?
If an image is called a render online then it shouldn't have a background when you download it unless you downloaded it as a JPG, which isn't the file type it should be downloaded as. It should be downloaded as a PNG file, these support transparent background (JPG doesn't and makes the background white/black). If you download a render as a PNG and it still has the white/black background, then you aren't downloading a legit render.
Also what program are you using for the renders and do you have any of the links to the renders that didn't work- Microsoft Paint and some other programs won't work for renders, I believe.
Oh okay I see.
I'm using the JASC Animation Shop free trail. Is there a site for renders? I personally want a render for Reki from hidan No Aria, but I can't seem to find one :/
KnightsToFear said: Oh okay I see.
I'm using the JASC Animation Shop free trail. Is there a site for renders? I personally want a render for Reki from hidan No Aria, but I can't seem to find one :/
I wish I knew of a solid render site, but popular ones I come across simply aren't as useful as just using Google/Google Image, DeviantArt or searching transparent_background on Danbooru. Sometimes you find some gems on render sites you won't find elsewhere. But they're are many bad renders that clog up those sites as well plus they often have annoying rules about downloading and searching. One site wants you to pay to download renders...
in Photoshop is easy to make a render if it's a special picture, but googling serie or character name + "render" + size big let you find some good renders with transparent background.
anyway, if you got some image and want a render of it, send me a pm with the image, if i can't make it, a friend of mine could do it..
I'll try to find a good render site, though probably not successful.
I appreciate it but don't worry about it too much, as its not a huge problem but if you find some good ones be sure to post back here tho. I find really good renders on Danbooru and Google like the ones used for my World of Moecraft list design on my anime list right now.