Help & FAQ's/Using Viewbook/Pages & Websites
How do I add a Background image to my Page?
Rien
posted this on November 10, 2009 09:30 am
Available in: Standard and Pro account
If you have a Standard or Pro account you can add a background to your Pages.
1. Upload your background image to Viewbook (in one of your albums).
2. Once the upload is ready click on the image in the Organize Images view.
3. The right side panel opens, showing your image with the option to add a title and description. It also shows links to your image. Click the one that is called 'original'. It opens in a new browser window.
4. Copy the link, from your web browser's address bar.
5. Open your Page in the Image Manager and paste the link into the background image input field (including the 'http://' part).
6. Click in the page field, to save it all.
7. Open your page to see the result (or reopen your page in the Image Manager).
You can also copy paste a URL to your image from another server.
Background image dimensions
We now offer a scalable background option that displays fullscreen at any resolution. Make sure your image is large enough to fill up a high resolution monitor like Apple's retina display. A Macbook Pro with a retina display has a native resolution of 2880 x 1800 pixels, so you should make sure you upload a background image that is a tiny bit larger than 2880 x 1800. You are more than welcome to upload a smaller file, but it may display shoddily on high resolution screens. Also, don't be afraid to upload an image that has been compressed a little bit. Large images take time to load in your browser, so if you are saving your background as a jpeg in Photoshop you probably shouldn't save it as 100%. Try a few versions if you like, but 80% should be enough to make your page loading times faster.
To activate the scalable background you need to check the scalable box in the Background and Logos tab in the image manager as shown below.
Of course, you don't need to use a scalable background. A static background can also be a wonderful option, and it works for a great number of people. Just keep in mind that there are lots of display resolutions, and there is no set of parameters to make a static background look perfect on all computers. Be prepared to engage in some trial and error.
Color Picker
If you need to match colors, you could try this color picker
Comments
If I have a background image on my portfolio page and have selected the "open albums full screen" option, is it possible to have that same background image appear on the album pages as well? or can the album backgrounds only be a flat color?
can i add a background image wit h the repeat function ? I just need a line...
Unfortunately tiling backgrounds are not an option at the moment. Just make a large image and use that!
hello! I have tried a few different times to add a background. I have tried both JPEG and TIFF files and while the URL shows up in the background image input field, it does not show up on the page. I have tried a few browsers to see if that would solve the problem...thanks!
Megan, please send us a support request so we can take a look.
So really you can only have your background image/site look right on either a large screen or a smaller screen? This seems a little strange, as if I configure my screen to look right/nice on my mac, (larger screen) it looks wrongwith only a small corner of the image visible on a pc(smaller)
Is there a way around this?
Thanks, Lee
Hi Lee,
At the moment there is no magical solution for background images in Viewbook. How the background image looks depends heavily on the nature of the image. If it is mostly (or entirely) a pattern it will probably look great on any size screen. If it is important that all aspects of the background image are viewable all the time on all screens, it's not going to happen - yet. There are some fine and clever uses of background images on our examples page. You should check it out > http://www.viewbook.com/portfolio-examples/
You must realize that all images are not ideally suited to be backgrounds. Some work. Some don't, but in the future we will be able to offer you more flexibility. It is going to be awesome, but I cannot offer you that level of awesomeness right this minute. All I can say is you have to try it out. If it looks good, you win. If not, try, try again.
Best,
Jim
It perfectly works for me when I grab viewbooks link but not with a flickr url. Do I have to keep the logo image in my album then ? Can't I hide it or erase ?