background Skin Settings Suggestions - Start With Background

[MotleyG]

Poweramp provides an almost unlimited number of options to personalize this player to suit everyone’s preferences. With this open design, it can almost become intimidating with where to start. I thought I would offer my thoughts on some starting points for the display and layout settings. By no means are these rules, but merely suggestions to try to help some that have requested advice in other threads. And for the record I have no affiliation with the development of the app, I am just another user and fan like you!

For this first post, I wanted to start with the very basics. Any of the default or 3rd party skins can help personalize your design, artwork, layout, colour choices, and even font choices to tailor it to be yours. The first thing I would consider is whether you prefer a dark or light display. This can be selected in the “Look and Feel” settings menu. While it can follow your device settings, most users will likely have a preference of one over the other. But one consistent component is the background option. This can be enabled in the main Poweramp settings page, fourth option down. It can be selected on or off regardless of your skin choice.

There are just four adjustments in the “Background” menu but the combination of them can lead to some very significant differences in the resulting background. It sets the album art from the file playing as a background for the Now Playing screen. Let’s look at what each setting does, then we can combine them to get the results you want.

Background Blur - Affects the focus of the artwork. As the name suggests, it controls how clear the image is, from sharp and distinct on the left end to virtually unrecognizable other than maybe shapes or lines on the right. This is helpful to blend the image away from the main art display, but keeps the detail and levels intact. 

Background Details - Affects the sharpness of the artwork. The far right end of the slider is detailed, and maintains the full cover characteristics. As you slide to the left the contrast of the dark and light areas start to blend together, until you reach the far left end where the entire image is a single solid colour blend of the art.

Background Intensity - Affects the brightness of the artwork. At the lowest end, it is virtually black no matter what colours are in your artwork, while at the highest 250% setting it is almost eyeball burning. This is a key setting depending on your preference I mentioned earlier for a light or dark display.

Background Saturation - Affects the amount of colour of the artwork. At 0% it becomes purely grey tones, a black and white image. At the 300% maximum any colours are driven up significantly, great if you want to emphasize the original art.

So how do you use these settings to get the perfect album art display? Well that is different for almost every one of us. There is no perfect. Fortunately we have these adjustments to work with. To start with, I make the following settings; Blur full left at less, Details at full right detailed, Intensity and Saturation set to 100%. This essentially makes the background the same as the original art display. You will need to exit the settings to see any changes you make each time.  [@maxmp perhaps this can be improved in the future to show the background behind the settings, so the changes can be seen live?]

Start your adjustments with Intensity somewhere between 150-250 for light backgrounds, while 15-50 is a good range for dark and still has the cover visible. Next adjust the Saturation, move above 100% to enhance the colours or below to reduce towards grey tones. After that move the details down and blur up, each one step at a time. This may take the most time to get the combination just right. Remember to use a few different covers, what looks good on one may not be so great on another.

I hope this quick guide helps to get your background display to be your Perfect!

Edited June 21, 2021 by MotleyG

[MotleyG]

BTW - my personal settings you ask? I prefer a darker display. It saves some power, and doesn’t blaze at night when listening in bed.

Blur=4, Details=8, Intensity=24%, Saturation=130%

[flyingdutchman]

@MotleyG a very helpful post. You mention settings i have not even looked at 😄😄. I will experiment with them.