Background images

[chartwise]

How large or small should I make a web page background image to cope with the numourous screen resolutions and to work using css.

I don't want an image to tile (repeat)

All help much appreciated

[gcmax]

Difficult to say but it should be near the intended screen resolution of the website itself. Popular is around 1000px in width or 1024x768.
If you can design or blend the borders of the background according to the background colour it should look nice in every screen resolution including and above the minimum your aiming for.

Here's a windows bg I made at various popular screen resolutions, might help.
http://www.gcmax.co.uk/download/windtp.zip
preview here http://gcmax.deviantart.com/#/d3ftgys

[friendlymentor]

Well, it totally depends on the kind of designs you're dealing with. I'd suggest check out the outcome by changing extensions when you are saving your images for web and devices and choose the one that has least load time.

[Rads2010]

just make a good background image and test it on most popular resolution's? thats what i do, i also center the background using css so its always in the right position.

[Major Payne]

Read first before you decide. Every one wants the "Holy Grail" of web pages, but need to read and heed.

Choosing Dimensions for Your Web Page Layout:

In Search of the Holy Grail: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/holygrail/
http://www.elated.com/articles/choos...b-page-layout/
How to create flexible sites quickly using standards like CSS and XHTML: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/web/library/wa-rapid/

960 Grid System: http://960.gs/

Care With Font Size: http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/font-size