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Smartphones come with multiple wallpapers available to use. However, many are extremely uninspiring, which, given that we all spend far too many hours a day staring at our phones, just won’t do. Luckily, you’re able to make your own phone wallpapers from abstract photos. And not only do they look good, they’re fun to create too.
What Are Abstract Photos, and How Do They Work as Wallpapers?
Abstract photos are any photographs that capture something other than the natural world. It can start out as something from the natural world, but once zoomed in, rotated, cropped, and edited, it should make the viewer think twice about what it is. As with allgenres of photography, it’s surprisingly easy to produce abstract photos, but it’s more difficult to produceGOODabstract photos.
You can use interesting objects, light patterns, textures, perspectives, and movements to capture abstract photos. Or you can shoot something very ordinary and then make it an abstract photo with some clever editing. As long as the result is a photo that shares some otherworldly quality and makes the viewer view it as a piece of art, it counts.
Abstract photos work very well as phone wallpaper for what should be obvious reasons. They provide an interesting backdrop to your home screen and lock screen without making either so busy looking as to be annoying. You can also create an abstract photo to your own specific needs, making it a certain color or pattern to match your personality.
Most phones come with lots of wallpapers to choose from, and many of these will be abstract to some degree. For example, my Pixel includes various genres of wallpaper that count as abstract, including “Art,” “Textures,” and “Bloom.” But nothing beats producing your own abstract wallpapers. The act of creating them is fun, and once they exist, you can show them off to your friends.
How to Create Abstract Photos to Use as Phone Wallpapers
In order to help you produce abstract photos to use as phone wallpapers, I’ll take you through the whole process from start to finish.
Conception
The starting point when creating an abstract photo to use as a wallpaper is the conception phase. You need to have an idea in mind before shooting a subject, and then edit the photo to turn it into a wallpaper.
I always start by looking at my phone’s home screen, which is busier than most people’s. With 18 app shortcuts, a clock, and a date/weather display, there’s a lot going on. Which is why I tend to keep my abstract wallpapers quite simple and understated. Aim to have your wallpaper complement your layout rather than conflict with it.
I’ll then come up with an idea of roughly what I want. The core color(s), whether it will be textured or patterned, and how busy I want it to be. Once I have a rough idea in mind, I’ll go hunting for a subject that can achieve those aims.
The creation phase is actually shooting the subject that (once edited) will form your abstract wallpaper. So, grab your phone, open the camera app, and choose the shooting mode. I tend to use the standard photo mode and manually apply zoom depending on how close to it I want to get. However, feel free to experiment as you see fit, applying flash to oversaturate the image, or even using Portrait mode.
Shoot your chosen subject from a variety of angles, with different sources of lighting, and with various levels of zoom. That will give you several shots to choose from and play with, saving you from having to revisit the subject.
Once you have your shots, flick through them until you settle on which one you’re going to use as the basis for your abstract wallpaper.
Perfection
Right now, your chosen shot is unlikely to be ready to be used. Unless you’ve cracked it while shooting, you’ll want toedit the shot in various ways. This could be as simple as cropping and rotating the image to focus on the exact part of the shot you want to use. But it could also involve some in-depth edits.
I always start by cropping and rotating the image as needed. As you’re creating a wallpaper for your phone, you’ll want the result to be a portrait rather than a landscape. Once you have your basic edits down, consider applying a filter.
At this point, you can choose to make some bigger, broader edits. I tend to useGoogle Photosfor this, but also highly recommend Snapseed (available onAndroidandiOS). Whatever you choose to use, experiment with different adjustments to the brightness, contrast, shadows, and warmth of the image.
Application
Once you’re happy with your wallpaper, it’s time to add it to your home screen. The process for doing this is different for every phone, but if you open the image, and tap the contextual menu, you should find an option toUse As. Tap this, and you should be able to make it your wallpaper.
On my Android phone, I can then position the wallpaper as I see fit. So I view how it will look on the home screen (as opposed to the lock screen), and adjust as needed. As I said previously, you want your wallpaper to complement rather than conflict with your home screen.
And that’s all there is to it. You should now have a completely original abstract wallpaper adorning your phone. Which means that, unlike the wallpapers that come pre-installed, you’ll be the only person using this one. And if you don’t like it, just create a new one from scratch!
5 Tips to Create Wallpaper-Worthy Abstract Images
While you now knowhow to create abstract photos, and how to create ones specifically to use as phone wallpapers, there are some tips worth following if you want the process to be more fun, and the results to be more satisfying.
It’s important to remember that not all the abstract photos you create will be wallpaper-worthy, even some of those you create with that use case in mind. So, be prepared to try lots of different things, and learn what shots and edits produce the best results. But above all, have fun with it!
