This week’s free desktop wallpaper is a photo that I’ve always loved. On a whim, I decided to do a vastly different version with the same data, removing the color from all but the petals. It’s an effect that comes and goes in popularity, usually called selective black and white, but it’s one that has always made me smile. One of the major goals in photography is to use composition, color, and lighting to draw the viewers eye to what you want them to notice. Selective black and white is sort of a blunt instrument in the toolbox for that, but it can really make for some very striking images, too. I thought that this photo turned out fairly nice, so I posted it on our Facebook page. After that, several people asked me to make them a wallpaper version of it, so I took another pass to clean it up and cropped it for you.

I also did something a little different with this wallpaper. It wasn’t a very good image for an iPad background (just not the right composition, as iPad backgrounds work better with center-weighted images), but it made for a pretty good Facebook Cover Photo, so I included it cropped and sized for that, too!

Lotus on Black and White Wallpaper

Image Credit: Bill Dubert
4:3 Screen
5:4 Screen
16:9 Screen
16:10 Screen
Facebook Cover Photo
Which wallpaper is right for my computer?