Where to Find Great Wallpapers

As I write this, I'm sitting behind a 19" monitor. The quality of the images and text on the screen is quite impressive. It's not a professional grade unit, it gets the job done. Monitors of this caliber are commonplace. If I were to walk into a Best Buy today, I would find many monitors much like this one for low low prices everyday (No, that was not a paid product placement. In fact, I don't really like Best Buy at all). I digress. Back to monitors. My point was that monitors these days are very...well..good. However, it was not too long ago, that the flat panel LCD was only a thing of science fiction. In those days, CRT's roamed the earth (Cathode Ray Tubes for uninitiated). During the late 1990's, they had evolved into bulky behemoths. They had sqare(ish) screens (4:3 ratios), and a large 19" CRT monitor would suck power like a herd of vacuum cleaners. Their shear size required that one have at least 3 acres of free desk space dedicated to the monitor alone.

In the time before color CRT's, there were simple, black and green monitors. Their screens were often no larger than 5" across. Not only was the computer wretchedly ugly by today's standards, but there was also no hope of ever placing a lovely image as the computer desktop background. The monitors were tiny, and the computers powering the display were utterly gutless. Indeed, these were the dark ages of computer displays.

"Hey! What a cute picture! Why don't I stretch the picture horribly so that it now looks like an obese, black groundhog!"

One might think that with the relative ubiquity of high quality monitors and digital imager that people everywhere would be adorning their screens with lovely mountain vistas and pastoral country scenes. Yes, one might certainly think that. However, one would be wrong. If you work in an office, take a quick and informal fugly wallpaper survey. Check to see how many folks have skewed, stretched, and/or garish imagery adulterating their high-definition monitors. If you're not artistically inclined, you might not notice or care. However, if a little part of you dies at the site of a stretched graphic, then you're sure to take notice! The puppy on the left is a prime example of what many a monitor look like. A portrait image is not meant to be stretched so that it appears square or landscape. Even placing this stretched image here on my site hurts me inside.

Enough is enough! I have a dream that people everywhere will stop the insanity and adorn their desktop backgrounds with properly formated wallpapers. To show that I really care about this issue, I'm not going to simply rant. I'm here to provide solutions. Check out the links below for some supertastic wallpaper action!

Please be aware that some of the linked sites MAY contain images that may be deemed inappropriate. While I have no desire to intentionally link readers to "smuttywallpapers.com," bear in mind that this is the internet. Always browse responsibly.

Example	Name and Description
	Interfacelift: This has long been my favorite places to find desktop wallpapers. New backgrounds are added daily. They are non-commercial, so there's never any wallpapers promoting Shrek. You also won't find wallpapers with Jessica Alba. What you will find is high-quality amateur photography and artwork.
	Mandolux: If you have 2 or 3 monitors in need of some desktop love, then this is the place for you. Most wallpaper sites cater to single monitors. Mandolux provides a wide variety of artwork that will stretch over 2 or 3 monitors. If I'm correct, all of the photos have been taken by one guy. Some of the art is traditional photography, while some of the other photographs are a-typical.
	iloveTypography: These wallpapers are a little niche. Not everyone is bound to like these. However, if you find text to be artistic, then these may be just your thing. The selection isn't huge, but some of the ways they've used text is rather creative!
	Apple Homer: This is just so well done that I had to add it. Enjoy. Available in a super high-resolution format!
	Crestock: Crestock is a stock image company. Normally their images are available for sale. However, they have released at least two collections of high-quality desktop images for download.
	flickr Wallpaper and Backgrounds: In case you were unaware, flickr is an online photo sharing service from Yahoo! Thousands (maybe millions) of people post and share their images on flickr. Members can also post their images to pools and groups. This particular group is dedicated to images intended for desktops. As you might expect with this sort of setup, the images will really run the gamut. Another similar pool certainly worth examing can be found here or here.