Personalization Disable Desktop Wallpaper JPEG Quality Reduction in Windows 11

SM03 · Nov 29, 2022

if I wanna use the wallpaper without any quality loss, then which one should I use?
This?
Disable Desktop Wallpaper JPEG Quality Reduction
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
"JPEGImportQuality"=dword:00000064

Brink · Nov 29, 2022

SM03 said:
if I wanna use the wallpaper without any quality loss, then which one should I use?
This?
Disable Desktop Wallpaper JPEG Quality Reduction
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
"JPEGImportQuality"=dword:00000064

Hello mate,

Correct. That would be the one to use to not lose any quality when using a JPG or JPEG file as your desktop background.

You don't lose quality with any other image file type (ex: PNG).

Rahulji · Nov 30, 2022

What about JPEG and PNG and BMP format? What is the best to use? thanks

Brink · Nov 30, 2022

Rahulji said:
What about JPEG and PNG and BMP format? What is the best to use? thanks

PNG is usually the best quality when it's the same size as your screen resolution.

abactuon · Dec 14, 2022

What is in the folder "C:\Users\SomeOne\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Themes\CachedFiles\CachedImage_1920_1080_POS0.jpg" ?
In the cache :

Source :

atinfo · May 25, 2023

Photos app saves a copy version of the image (which I set as wallpaper) in this path:
"C:\Users\X\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.Photos_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalState\PhotosAppBackground"

Is there a way to disable this behaviour? Those images won't automatically delete if I set a new image as a new wallpaper. Does the Photos app reduce the quality?

I use MS Paint to set an image as a wallpaper. Is this method lossy (reduces the quality and piles a bunch of images in a specific folder)?

abactuon · May 25, 2023

atinfo said:
Those images won't automatically delete if I set a new image as a new wallpaper.

This is the way it should be.

Use PNG format without compression(?)

atinfo · May 26, 2023

abactuon said:
This is the way it should be.

I mean the cached images not the current wallpaper. All images you set as wallpaper has a copy version in that folder (PhotosAppBackground).

abactuon said:
Use PNG format without compression(?)

It's nonsense if you have a JPG then convert them to a PNG! A lossy format image (with reduced quality) to a lossless format. You just make the image size bigger. I set my own wallpapers (which I make in Photosop and export them as PNG) as PNG.

abactuon · May 26, 2023

On my screen I can't see the difference between jpg(100%),jpg(90%),png for wallpapers downloaded from the internet. Placebo.
Maybe for larger 4K+HDR monitors it's different.

grendelfour · Jul 5, 2024

I have a very odd problem. Let me explain.

I have my wallpaper background set to slideshow. The slideshow is set to a folder containing 150 high quality png images made by me. Windows 11 is automatically converting these beautiful pngs into crappy transcoded jpegs... I am baffled when people say that using png files will result in a a lossless desktop background, that's certainly not the case for my experience unfortuantely,

I tried the registry edit trick, set the jpeg quality to 100, etc. This did not get rid of the problem. Whenever a new wallpaper loads from the slideshow, 50% of the time it looks good, and the other half of the time it has terrible banding and compression artifacts.

This is where things get really strange. Whenever windows loads a low quality desktop background, I right click on the desktop and select "personalize". Then I navigate to "background" and view the otions. I do not change any of the settings, I simply look at the optons. Then, when I go back to my desktop, all the banding and artefacts are magically gone. Somehow, viewing the desktop background options causes the crappy transcoded wallpaper to be replaced with a high quality one. Something very strange is going on here and I'd like to fix it! Any help is appreciated. I spent a long time making my custom wallpapers, I can't stand to see MS mangle them

Brink · Jul 5, 2024

grendelfour said:
I have a very odd problem. Let me explain.

I have my wallpaper background set to slideshow. The slideshow is set to a folder containing 150 high quality png images made by me. Windows 11 is automatically converting these beautiful pngs into crappy transcoded jpegs... I am baffled when people say that using png files will result in a a lossless desktop background, that's certainly not the case for my experience unfortuantely,

I tried the registry edit trick, set the jpeg quality to 100, etc. This did not get rid of the problem. Whenever a new wallpaper loads from the slideshow, 50% of the time it looks good, and the other half of the time it has terrible banding and compression artifacts.

This is where things get really strange. Whenever windows loads a low quality desktop background, I right click on the desktop and select "personalize". Then I navigate to "background" and view the otions. I do not change any of the settings, I simply look at the optons. Then, when I go back to my desktop, all the banding and artefacts are magically gone. Somehow, viewing the desktop background options causes the crappy transcoded wallpaper to be replaced with a high quality one. Something very strange is going on here and I'd like to fix it! Any help is appreciated. I spent a long time making my custom wallpapers, I can't stand to see MS mangle them

Hello, and welcome.

It sounds like the source image is being copied to a cache with lower quality to be used from.

If you like, you can use the context menu added by the tutorial below to directly open the location of the current desktop background to confirm if this location is the correct one or a cache.

Add Open Desktop Background File Location context menu in Windows 11 Tutorial

This tutorial will show you how to add or remove Open desktop background file location on the desktop context menu for all users in Windows 10 and Windows 11. You can change your desktop background in Windows 11 to be a picture, solid color, a slideshow, or Windows Spotlight. You can add a...

www.elevenforum.com

TairikuOkami · Jul 5, 2024

grendelfour said:
Something very strange is going on here and I'd like to fix it! Any help is appreciated.

You can always try 3rd party apps like Wallpaper Engine with more options.

grendelfour · Jul 5, 2024

Brink said:
Hello, and welcome.

It sounds like the source image is being copied to a cache with lower quality to be used from.

If you like, you can use the context menu added by the tutorial below to directly open the location of the current desktop background to confirm if this location is the correct one or a cache.

Add Open Desktop Background File Location context menu in Windows 11 Tutorial

This tutorial will show you how to add or remove Open desktop background file location on the desktop context menu for all users in Windows 10 and Windows 11. You can change your desktop background in Windows 11 to be a picture, solid color, a slideshow, or Windows Spotlight. You can add a...

www.elevenforum.com

Thank you for the good welcome! Speaking of cache, I tried replacing the "cachedfiles" folder with a dummy file, but Windows won't let me delete the folder because it says the folder "is in use". I saw a thread about deleting this folder this in the W10 forum, I will look at your tutorial and investigate both further

Re: 3rd party software I think I tried Wallpaper Engine but I uninstalled it because they don't have a slideshow feature... maybe I am mistaken about this? My goal is to have my desktop refresh a new image every hour, using a folder of 150 different png files. If there is a 3rd party app that does this I will switch to it gladly!