Remastering the nostalgic Windows Wallpaper for 4K Monitors.
The “Dangerous Creatures” Wallpaper is an honest nostalgia for me as its the first wallpaper I ever had on my (first) computer. Loved seeing this backlit Puma in all its majesty every time I booted up the PC.
Wanted to recreate this beauty to fit my 4K monitor, but all I had was the 1024x768 version of the image. My first option was to search for some AI-powered image re-scaler but the issue was pixel stretching. No matter how many algorithms were used, it always ended up looking bad. My next option was to remaster it myself using Photoshop.
(Left : Aww, Would'ya look at that! )
Tried extending the background using content-aware scale to fit 4K resolution and I was wrong! Photoshop AI wasn’t any better when it came to duplicating pixels!
I tried rebuilding the composition by adding different but similar images into the composition.
Used an image of savanna, adjusted its properties to match the foreground color and light. Built a new set of rocks using a different image in the foreground.
Was starting to look better. For the bottom, I tried using another image with a bit of gaussian blur applied to it so that it will mock real depth of field.
And there it was, now happily sitting in my home computer!
