Make iPhone Custom Wallpapers

The iPhone wallpaper should be 320 pixels by 480 pixels and 163ppi or 1:1.5. I like to make my wallpapers at 180 resolution for the little extra size and quality. The iPhone takes a higher resolution of 163 whereas web images are at 72, so if you save any wallpapers strait from this page or online anywhere for that matter, they will be a lower resolution and lower quality than if you made them out of larger images of your own. Many iPhone wallpaper downloading sites allow you to download the larger higher resolution images. When making a wallpaper from one of your own photos or graphics, make sure the image is much larger than the iphone wallpaper size or you will end up with pixelated images. Also, because of the iPhone's brightness, you will want to boost up the contrast and saturation of any images you want to save as a wallpaper.

In Photoshop, open the image you wish to make into your wallpaper. In this tutorial I'll be using a picture of my Scottish Terrier, Kierra, that I took with my digital camera. The image was originally 2304 pixels by 3072 pixels at 180 ppi, so taking it down to a small size at 180 resolution will still keep the detail and sharpness of the image.

Making a large picture of your own into a wallpaper for your iPhone is very simple in photoshop. The first thing you need to do is click on the crop tool. Change the crop width to 320px, crop height to 480px, and resolution to 180 pixels/inch.

Now take the crop tool and drag it over what you want to be seen on your iPhone wallpaper. Remember that you will have a section on the top of the picture and smaller section on the bottom of the picture that will have a translucent area for the time and slider of the iPhone. It is best to make the main subject of your image to be right in the center so it isn't covered by the translucent areas. You can adjust the crop area by dragging the corners out or in, or by clicking on the middle of the crop box and move the entire crop area, because you put in the crop width and height beforehand, the crop area will stay to that scale. Press the ENTER key whenever you have the area you want to crop to your liking.

Now that you have cropped your image, the size should be 320 pixels by 480 pixels at 180ppi. I prefer to zoom my image to 100% by double clicking on the zoom tool on the side toolbar. Now we need to fix the brightness, contrast, and saturation of the picture, since the iPhone has a higher brightness than most computer monitors. You can skip this section if you do not wish to adjust your image any more.

Go to Image > Adjustments > Levels OR Ctrl L

I like to move in the black and white arrows inward a little until I get a good contrast, then move the middle gray area depending on if it needs to be darker or lighter. Most of the time, the level is the only adjusting I need to make to show better brightness, contrast, and saturation. If you prefer to play with it more, the Hue/Saturation and Color Balance are fun to play with as well.

Once you are happy with the apparence of your image...

Go to File > Save for Web & Devices

I like to use this feature because I can see what my image will be once it is saved. Select JPEG at 100% best quality.

Save it to a folder specifically for iPhone Wallpapers so that you can save them to your iPhone easily.

Hook up your iPhone to your computer. Once iTunes opens...

go to Photos > Choose Folder > (Find the folder you made for your wallpapers)

Don't worry about not seeing any images in the folder. iTunes is wanting to find a folder only, not images.

Hit Apply!

Once it is finished uploading to your iPhone, go to your Photos and you should have a new Photo Library with your wallpapers ready to be used!

Gimp is a free graphics editing program much like Photoshop. If you do not have access to Photoshop or the money to purchase it, Gimp is the way to go!

Download Gimp for Free

This tutorial is currently under construction...

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