If you checked the Windows Personalization Gallery last week you might have noticed the quiet arrival of a lovely new Windows 7 theme: Candlelight. This theme brings the serene illumination of candles year-round to your desktop, with images not only of lighted tapers reflected in frosted windowpanes, but also of flickering candles amongst springtime cherry blossoms and in a lush summer forest scene.
Speaking of frosted windowpanes, our next theme – Snowflakes and Frost – zooms in on the delicate perfection of ice crystals.
In early October I announced the launch of our open call for art and photography. Since then we’ve received at least 2,000 submissions from the community, and published several new Windows 7 themes and desktop wallpapers featuring some of the best images we received. And now we’re kicking off two new themes to showcase gorgeous nature and landscape photos – Flora and Terra.
Flora will focus on close-ups of plants, flowers, and foliage; whereas Terra will celebrate the beauty of planet Earth with wider landscape shots, including beaches, forests, waterfalls, cityscapes, sunsets, and more. Best of all, since these are dynamic themes, they will update via an RSS feed with new photos every week.
To make it easier for you to find images submitted by the community, we’ve created two new tabs dedicated to themes and wallpapers submitted by individual artists and photographers; themes from the community and wallpapers from the community. You might notice that some of the themes and wallpapers included are older; we “grandfathered in” the ones we acquired from individual photographers and artists prior to the start of the official open call, since they qualify as being “from the community” as well.
We also created a new tab for dynamic themes, to make it easier for you to find themes that will continue to update with new images using an RSS feed. Some new dynamic themes are in the works now, so check this tab for more over the next few weeks.
If you don’t have Windows 7, or if you prefer to use a single desktop image at a time, keep checking the New desktop backgrounds tab for fresh wallpapers. Here are some we’ve published recently:
 Tranquil Candles |
 Candles and Cherry Blossoms |
 Snowflake |
 Ice Crystals |
 Blue Wave |
 Machine Works |
 Golden Glow |
 Red Burst |
 Iguazu Falls |
 Horseshoe Falls |
 Calico Corn |
 Cornucopia |
And stay tuned for new seasonal, holiday, and dynamic Windows 7 themes coming your way soon!