Where to download background images?

[44echo]

Does anyone know where I can download simple images I can use for my DVD menu page background? The wallpaper downloads are a little too "busy." I don't want something psychedelic, or techno. I don't want a plain, solid color background either. Just a simple background that is pleasing to the eye.

A gradient blend of blue to yellow....good.
A deer running through the woods....bad.
A solid color with different colored pin stripes around the border....good.
A series of 3D geometrical shapes....bad.
A "smokey" or "hazey" cloud effect....good.
A unicorn and rainbows....bad.

There isn't a very good selection that comes with my authoring program and all of my DVDs are starting to look the same.

Thanks.

[daamon]

Hi 44echo,

A quick search in Google for "DVD background" brought up:

www.copacetix.com/DVD-Backgrounds.php

I'm sure similar searches and a bit of delving will reap rewards.

You can probably also make them in your favourite photo / image editing software.

[thecoalman]

Get a image editing app and make your own. Simple images like that can be created easily and quickly. thefollowing one took less than the time it took me to type these two sentences.

[BJ_M]

whole bunch free ones at main concept

also sony had some on thier site

[44echo]

Thank you all for your help. I thought of making them myself before but figured a simple Google search would reveal more than I ever wanted to see. It did, but it was mainly psychedelic crap or pictures of things that didn't make good backgrounds.

I'll check the sites you have listed and probably make some of my own.

Thanks again!

[daamon]

@ thecoalman: Just out of interest, what did you use to create that background? Can you briefly explain the steps? Cheers...

[thecoalman]

Ulead Photoimpact. Select new image, I already have a 720x480 preset. Use the gradiet bucket fill tool, select the colors, select you srart and end points. Anything between the points will be gradient. In this case I started about 1/4 of the way from the left and extended it all the way to the right. That's why there's more blue. It's quite simple. You can even use mutiple colors.......

Also note you might notice the vertical lines, that's caused by the jpg. compression. they would not be there if it was lossless format or I had saved it with a softening affect.

[daamon]

Nicely done... Cheers.

[BJ_M]

u can also create a ton of them with vegas -- even the demo version

[lordsmurf]

Adobe Photoshop.

[BJ_M]

or paint shop pro , which is cheaper than photoshop, but almost does the same thing..


my suggestion for using vegas above - was to create moving images btw

[sacajaweeda]

I think googling for images and snagging other people's stuff to use for your DVD backgrounds is kinda tacky. Even tackier than using the lame images that most authoring apps come factory equipped with. The whole DVD creation thing for me is about, well, creativity. Especially stuff like home movies & whatnot. If you're going to put forth the time and effort to learn how to author a DVD, why lame out on the menus? It's not that tough.

My $.02

[Faustus]

One of these days I'm gonna have to learn me some graphics. I always feel so stupid having to ask others for simple things.

[lordsmurf]

Bright colors... like blue, pink, yellow, red ... look pretty crappy on a tv set, and bleed like hell. best to tone down saturation on certain colors, or at least offset them with designs.

Take this image:



It's no Renoire, but it'd work for something simple as requested. All I did was create a 720x540 image (correct for most authoring apps), and gave it a black background. I added a second layer, picked a dark yellow and mid tone blue as my brush colors, and used the gradient tool, from left to right, but at a slight angle, not 100% straight (boring!). Then I made this second layer 75% opaque, meaning 25% of the black background merged with it. Next, I added two more layers. In the layer, I took a medium sized brush, and did yellow zig zags across the blue. The second layer, blue zig zags across the yellow. Then I used the motion blur filter on each layer.

Remember the outer 7% of the image will disappear into overscan on the tv set. This is VERY IMPORTANT to remember when creating menu backgrounds.

Feel free to use this if you want, doesn't bother me any. Just know this post is 640x480, so you'd have to resize it for the authoring app, most likely. TDA is the only one I can think of that doesn't really care and does it's own resizing.

[44echo]

Thanks for the indepth descriptions, coalman and lordsmurf. That's the kind of stuff I'm looking for.