Ask HN: Best Source for Desktop Backgrounds • Hacker News Board

Years ago I used DeviantArt quite a bit for that (https://www.deviantart.com/). I don't really know how good a resource it is these days but it's still a thing.

Re: Ask HN: Best Source for Desktop Backgrounds

#34

Post by pimlottc » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 9:33 PM UTC

hellokittah wrote: post #12

The best one I found was https://Unsplash.com It has 1000s of high quality absolutely free images. You can even use them for commercial purposes for free legally.

Unsplash is also a great resource for slide deck backgrounds and hero images.

Re: Ask HN: Best Source for Desktop Backgrounds

#35

Post by mikewarot » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 9:37 PM UTC

Don't forget Flickr, which is still alive, and still has strong support for the Creative Commons.

Here's a picture of clover I use as my background, it's dark enough I can still see my icons, yet interesting.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/---mike---/50131172608/in/date...

Disclosure: I took the photo.

Re: Ask HN: Best Source for Desktop Backgrounds

#36

Post by kitsunesoba » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 9:37 PM UTC

kylelibra wrote: post #14

https://wallhaven.cc has a solid selection and some basic filters.

This is by far the one I use most. Great selection, relatively few dupes, decent tagging, and not too many low quality upscales.

Re: Ask HN: Best Source for Desktop Backgrounds

#37

Post by ddevault » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 9:38 PM UTC

I'll play the weeb card for this one. I like danbooru, which mainly categorizes fan art for anime and such, and is the gold standard in community image indexing and categorization. Their main site is NSFW, but you can access an SFW version via safebooru. Here's an example of a search which yields some wallpapers:

https://safebooru.donmai.us/posts?tags=ratio%3A16%3A9+scener...

The images are available in their original quality, and they have detailed tags. You can search by aspect ratio, width and height, and details of the image - "colorful", "scenery", "cityscape", and so on, or by the artist, copyright, or featured characters. You can search up to two terms for free, or pay a one-time fee of $20 for 6 terms, and $40 for twelve.

The search features are documented here:

https://safebooru.donmai.us/wiki_pages/help%3Acheatsheet

Re: Ask HN: Best Source for Desktop Backgrounds

#38

Post by fiznool » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

As mentioned by others, the daily wallpapers supplied by bing are very nice. They aren’t 4k, but the 1080p images still look good on my 4k monitors.

There are a number of scripts out there which download the ‘picture of the day’ and store it locally. You can then set your computer to scroll through these images every so often. Here’s the one I use: https://github.com/thejandroman/bing-wallpaper

Re: Ask HN: Best Source for Desktop Backgrounds

#39

Post by ayoisaiah » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 9:50 PM UTC

I maintain my own Unsplash collection here: https://unsplash.com/collections/998309/stellar-photos

Re: Ask HN: Best Source for Desktop Backgrounds

#40

Post by blacktriangle » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 9:50 PM UTC

lazyweb wrote: post #24

Maybe somewhat nostalgic, but I remember cycling through many artworks by digitalblasphemy [1] during the early-mid 2000s. Honestly surprised to see there's still new content! [1] https://digitalblasphemy.com/

I'm still a subscriber there actually. The guy behind it is going strong and keeps trying new things. Would highly recommend if you like his style.