Blurry desktop at the correct res

**slowwestvulture** · 07-05-2010

Hey guys, this is driving me up the wall. Hope you can help.

So, I've just created a new desktop in Photoshop CS4 and saved it as a PNG file, as I normally do (and also saved a back-up JPEG). The pixel dimensions/resolution are all correctly aligned with my normal desktop settings (1440x900x300, and one at 1440x900x72) - I've made two other wallpapers tonight and used the exact same settings, and those turned out fine. But for some reason, when I set this one particular wallpaper as my desktop, the image is very blurred and funky-looking. When I open up the PSD, PNG, and JPEG files - both in Preview and in Photoshop - they all look crystal clear. Yet when I set either the PNG or JPEG files as the desktop again, it's all blurred. The other wallpapers I've made have the exact same settings and they turned out fine, but this one for some reason is just not correctly displaying on my desktop - neither the PNG nor the JPEG.

I've checked and re-checked all my display settings, tried going through "personalize desktop" AND right-click-set-as-desktop, refreshing my desktop, googling, etc, and this is STILL HAPPENING. It's driving me CRAZY. What the heck is going on?!

I know it's not a problem with my monitor or graphics card, as all my drivers are up to date and everything else is displaying perfectly. If I switch between the first desktop I made tonight and this troubling one, the first one displays perfectly but the second one looks terrible, even though they have the EXACT same settings. I'm using Windows Vista, 64-bit, if that helps at all.

**Expertz** · 07-05-2010

Can you post a pic of the blurry desktop that you created and what is the size of your monitor screen ? In the meanwhile, have you tried setting your screen resolution above 60Hz or so because it is quite low and might give flickers at time. You can also try some different screen resolutions by going into Control Panel then Display then Appearance tab and then Effects button, and enable 'Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts', then select ClearType from the dropdown menu. Hope that helps.

**slowwestvulture** · 08-05-2010

Thanks for the fast reply! And sorry for not posting images before. Silly me.

Here is the PNG: http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/6...nerationip.png
Here is the JPEG: http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/853...generation.jpg
And here is a screenshot of what my desktop looks like when I set the PNG or the JPEG as my background: http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/2...reenshotpn.jpg

What's weird is that the people in the front don't appear to be blurred, but the tree and the ribcage images are definitely blurred and/or pixelated. It's nothing in my PSD file either, because I've gone through each layer about a dozen times now. There are no blur effects on anything, nothing at all that should create that effect. And anyways the PSD file doesn't even look like that - it looks crystal clear, just like the PNG/JPEG. Then again it's making me think - okay, if the dudes in front are clear but the background isn't, that HAS to be something in Photoshop. But no, I've been through very thoroughly and there is literally nothing that should or would make that happen. I've even gone so far as to recreate entire layers (all of them but the people) in case there was a problem with one of them, but still - no dice. Same thing.

My refresh rate is set at 75Hz and I do have Cleartype already enabled. The default size of my desktop is 1440x900, which is what I'm using and also the dimensions of both the JPEG and the PNG files. I've checked them about a thousand times over to see if I mucked up the resolution or something, but no - it all looks perfectly fine. And like I said, all of my other desktops display perfectly, and they have the exact same settings/dimensions/res/everything. It's just this one. And the file itself isn't blurry, as you can see - only when I put it on my desktop.

I am completely out of guesses at this point.

**Jimmy24** · 08-05-2010

Did you try to run the monitor off the DVI port on your video card with a DVI-CRT convertor? (assuming that you have a video card and it has a DVI port). One of my friend had similar issues and what he did to fix this issue was he tried a utility embedded on the onscreen menu called "Image Restoration". The book says this works but will reduce in effectiveness as the monitor gets older.