Thinkpads Forum

Ok, here's a sample of a gray 4:3 one:
http://files.arkadiusz.wahlig.googlepag ... Gray-1.jpg

yak wrote:Ok, here's a sample of a gray 4:3 one:
http://files.arkadiusz.wahlig.googlepag ... Gray-1.jpg

I guess it doesn´t really look as good as the green one does. Maybe my idea wasn´t good at all

Marin

Gray may not be a good idea because the ThinkPad isn't too colorful which makes the whole picture look plainly mono.

We'll see how other colors turn out. I'll try to make a light red one, should play nicely with ThinkPad colors.

yak wrote:Gray may not be a good idea because the ThinkPad isn't too colorful

You are reading my thoughts Lighter colors may indeed turn out very suitable. Looking forward to updates

Marin

Here's a red one (standard aspect ratio):
http://files.arkadiusz.wahlig.googlepag ... .Red-1.jpg

This is just a quick trick done so we can see how it would look. Instead of colorizing the greenish flowers and then copying and scaling it for the on-screen repetitions I've just used the Photoshop's Replace Color tool to replace all green with red. As an effect, the small butterfly on the far right as well as the gradient at the bottom are still somewhat greenish. When we will settle on the color, I'll redo it properly.

Regarding the color, I think it looks good. It´s quite female, so it would fit very well to a girl´s ThinkPad. (I also noticed the greenesh rudiments.)

I don't like it either

I got kind of bored working on this wallpaper so I played a bit with the transparent T60p I made and some wallpapers I found on the web:
http://files.arkadiusz.wahlig.googlepag ... cles-1.jpg
http://files.arkadiusz.wahlig.googlepag ... ard-1w.jpg
http://files.arkadiusz.wahlig.googlepag ... Dark-1.jpg
http://files.arkadiusz.wahlig.googlepag ... olet-1.jpg

I especially like the first two. Which ones do you like?

I like the first and the fourth one. The second one is somewhat too Macish for me I think the problem with the third one are the dark areas, probably because of the different blue nuances the dark areas also look somewhat dirty. Maybe with some "lighting" and "cleaning"...ah, I see now what the problem is with the third one: in the ThinkPad screen there are both too white and too dark areas, the white-blue parts look really like some washing powder ad , and the white doesn´t fit to the external part (and no, I don´t hate white ).

Marin

EDIT: just one more thing about the fourth one: the blue-white parts in the screen don´t really go with the violet...

Nice work.

By the way, the green butterflies look as if they could be modded into shamrocks. On an unrelated note, St. Pat's is coming up too.

*hint* *hint*...*nudge* *nudge*

Just a quick edit, the fourth with the green screen contents from the first one:
http://files.arkadiusz.wahlig.googlepag ... olet-2.jpg

BTW, I hope you've noticed the glow/shadow effect. I think it looks pretty cool, gives the picture a bit of depth.

yak wrote:Just a quick edit, the fourth with the green screen contents from the first one:
http://files.arkadiusz.wahlig.googlepag ... olet-2.jpg

I think it look now much better, very Vista-ready

yak wrote:BTW, I hope you've noticed the glow/shadow effect. I think it looks pretty cool, gives the picture a bit of depth.

I believe I can say I have noticed them But I haven´t realized that these are additional effects before you mentioned it It looked somehow natural to me...

HOT!

@yak: Do you think you could make some "Vista-ready" wallpapers for ThinkPad with the ThinkPad camera effect like the first ones (for example using some of the Vista wallpapers from above)? Is it actually possible to automatize the process so that one only has to change the background?

Marin

You mean with the glow/shadow? Yeah. In Photoshop it's pretty easy. The picture consists of layers. One is the background, another is the gradient at the bottom (I add it to light wallpapers to make the battery gauge on the task bar better visible) and then there's one with the T60p. The last one has an effect added causing it to cast a shadow on the lower layers. So to create another wallpaper like this I only have to drop a new background layer, move the ThinkPad around if needed and I'm done. The only tricky part are the contents of the screen because they aren't exactly rectangle shaped.

Give me some links to nice wallpapers and I'll see what I can do.

yak wrote:You mean with the glow/shadow?

That too, but also with the motive with the ThinkPad in a ThinkPad I have already noticed the dark part at the bottom of the wallpapers, great idea because of the battery gauge, but do you think it should be really that dark? I mean if it´s just some dark nuance of the "main" color that would be enough, besides, taking the main color for the very bottom you could also make it flow more gradually from the brighter part, so it won´t give an impression of being a dark stripe through the whole bottom. I´m not sure if that would really work for the battery gauge though (but I hope it could)... BTW, I could send you tons of great wallpapers PM me if interested

Marin

Marin85 wrote:That too, but also with the motive with the ThinkPad in a ThinkPad

Ah, right. I'll try to find a way to automate the process and will let you know.

Marin85 wrote:I have already noticed the dark part at the bottom of the wallpapers, great idea because of the battery gauge, but do you think it should be really that dark? I mean if it´s just some dark nuance of the "main" color that would be enough, besides, taking the main color for the very bottom you could also make it flow more gradually from the brighter part, so it won´t give an impression of being a dark stripe through the whole bottom. I´m not sure if that would really work for the battery gauge though (but I hope it could)...

Unfortunately no, it has to be quite dark to make the gauge readable. To be honest I don't like the gradient too but I haven't come up with anything better yet. They really need to fix this. Or maybe there's some way to hack it so it is never drawn transparent...

EDIT: I'm just fiddling with the gauge problem. I have one idea for a solution right now. A small program could be written that would run in the background all the time. It would follow the gauge window (yes, it is a small borderless window) and display another one of the same size filled with black color. The window would be placed just under the taskbar so it would provide the background for the gauge (and only the gauge) all the time. This seems quite feasible to me, the main problem being how to follow the gauge without using a timer.

EDIT: I was browsing today and stumbled upon a picture of T60 I missed before:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lenovophot ... 350615491/

It reminded me of this X300 photo of course:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lenovophot ... 267336596/

I had to make it look similar . Copy'n'pasting the TrackPoint caps proved to be suboptimal because the X300 photo was taken at a lower angle. I ended up finding shots of the caps at an angle similar to the T60 and spreading them below it. I haven't even tried to make the T60 float as the X300 does because this would require too much work I don't have time for now. Besides, the effect is there to emphasize how light and portable the X300 is. Doesn't apply to a T60. So, here it is:
http://files.arkadiusz.wahlig.googlepag ... t_caps.jpg

It's meant to be a wallpaper, I've also added the Lenovo logo at the top. Unfortunately it's XGA only because of the original T60 photo size.

OK, time to remove these gradients from the bottom of the wallpapers...
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 79&start=0

Some of the wallpapers with removed gradients:
http://files.arkadiusz.wahlig.googlepag ... ies-11.jpg
http://files.arkadiusz.wahlig.googlepag ... es-11w.jpg
http://files.arkadiusz.wahlig.googlepag ... cles-2.jpg
http://files.arkadiusz.wahlig.googlepag ... olet-3.jpg

I think that the dark gradient correction made all four wallpaper look even better (=I like them even more ). With your utility for the battery gauge, that shouldn´t be a problem. BTW, I´m gonna try it out under Windows 7 and will report later how it works there.


Marin

too much...

would you provide a plain background lenovo wallpaper without the thinkpad?

gunston wrote:too much...

would you provide a plain background lenovo wallpaper without the thinkpad?

As you can see from the first post, the butterflies wallpaper was created from an X300 one. This is the reason why the T60p is placed in the same spot as the X300 - there is no background behind it. Nevertheless, I've created one for you. If you have some nice logo or something, you can put it on to cover the gap:
http://files.arkadiusz.wahlig.googlepag ... lies-1.jpg

yak wrote:As you can see from the first post, the butterflies wallpaper was created from an X300 one. This is the reason why the T60p is placed in the same spot as the X300 - there is no background behind it. Nevertheless, I've created one for you. If you have some nice logo or something, you can put it on to cover the gap:
http://files.arkadiusz.wahlig.googlepag ... lies-1.jpg

Wow. This is the best version yet.

I like all the ones in this thread, but the first thing that came to mind is to draw an outline of TP and put the IBM logo on the corner where it should go (for this last one).