Chris Dzombak

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Desert stills from Koyaanisqatsi as desktop wallpaper

Desert stills from Koyaanisqatsi as desktop wallpaper

The Yearlong Koyaanisqatsi Mastodon bot recently shared a series of frames that I felt could stand alone as still photos — something I find somewhat rare in a lot of movies, though Koyaanisqatsi and co. are a notable exception.

I thought they’d work nicely as desktop wallpapers. Unfortunately, AFAICT there’s no 4K release of the film. (Even if there were, some of it was filmed on 16mm film, so the HD release is probably as good as it gets for those shots. I’m not sure if these stills were from 16mm or 35mm shots.)

The next best option, I figured, would be to try Pixelmator’s ML Super Resolution feature to scale the frames up. This worked okay, but the results aren’t stellar. Nonetheless, I’m sharing them below.

I also generated a few versions of the stills with slight and moderate amounts of blur applied, in case you prefer a smoother-feeling wallpaper.

Koyaanisqatsi Desert Wallpaper