Windows Vista with a Black Background
A fun way to liven up your computer screen is to add a favorite photo as the desktop background. The problem is the your family portrait or pet collage make the icons difficult to make out and the text hard to read. Moving to a solid color background, such as black, makes for a boring, but easily understood screen.
In Windows Vista, you can easily set the background to a solid black. In the Personalization control panel, the desktop background option shows the foloowing screen, where you can selct a ‘solid background‘ color:
Setting a Black Background in Vista
Both Windows XP and Mac OS offer similar background settings, though XP does nto offer a simple solid color option. A simple workaround is to take a picture with your camera lens completely covered. The resulting photo is a simple black picture that you can set as your background image. This tip also works for any device where you can set a background image, including your computer and most cell phones.
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WinXp: in the tab where you set wallpapers (Display Properties | Desktop), choose “none” in background listbox, and in the right bottom combox (or press “alt + c”), select the desired solid color. :)
Matt, thanks. I don’t have an XP machine anymore and could not remember the trick. I think I used a mostly black image as the background, not as good as they way you point out.