WetGeek I wonder how the link works? Just a hard or sym link the desktop-setting gui has to remember in a conf or something? what if you move your zoo pictures from the folder you linked it to? would the link still exist? or would the zoo wallpapers vanish from the wallpaper choices? unless there is no link but a duplicate created?
It don't seem right to have an app link to every background in every single place all willy-nilly. But I've probably overthought this already...
gnome-control-center/budgie-control-center, does copy the image to a specific folder /home/<user>/.cache/wallpaper/<name_of_wallpaper>, (ls -l shows it's not a link) that way it just grab that image file and set it as wallpaper, being in .cache makes it easier to find it even if the original was moved or removed.
I am using variety to set a group of images in a folder as wallpaper and make rotations of them in periods of time, it sets as wallpaper whatever image is in the selected folder.
responding to the title "Wallpaper Best Practices" it is reduced to: don't use small images to fill the screen, makes a blurry mess and don't set a too big image as wallpaper, sharp edges (aliasing) could appear an looks bad.
I think I covered all 
brent Doesn't matter much. I'd move the wallpaper off Downloads folder, though so it doesn't get accidentally deleted. I think Windows makes a .jpg copy of wallpaper to AppData but Linux desktop environments source it directly.
There shouldn't be harm in using a wallpaper from your home folder, the only exception of course being if you want to share a same wallpaper among multiple users. Also if you want to change your LightDM background the file needs to be in a system folder.
brent I think the desktop just stores the path(s) somewhere. If it's multiple wallpapers and it can't load one, it just presumably moves to the next one.
It's a shame that GNOME removed the ability to set a colour (or gradient) as a wallpaper, instead of having to manually create/source singe-colour wallpapers.
brent But I've probably overthought this already...
That wouldn't surprise me.
In Plasma, I just select the picture I want to use, right-click on it, and choose Set as wallpaper from the context menu. I suppose it could be creating a symlink, but I've never given that much thought. If I had to take a guess, I'd suspect that it's copied somewhere. I doubt that the background would disappear if the original picture were deleted, but I admit I've never tried that to find out.
By the way, this image -- with the context menu open -- was taken of my Plasma VM, using Spectacle on my host laptop. I tried to do it with my Budgie VM instead, figuring that would mean more to you, but I couldn't find a similar item in the context menu. Perhaps it's found elsewhere on Budgie?
Staudey It's a shame that GNOME removed the ability to set a colour (or gradient) as a wallpaper
Not that I want to sound like a Plasma evangelist, but it's still there. A right-click on the screen background displays this context menu.
And that top item gets one this.
And the Wallpaper types include this.
I kinda like this one.
Actually, while I was fooling around with this setting, I created this custom color. Seems a little Windowsy to me, but the more I look at it, they more I understand how it could be soothing. Thanks for bring it up, @brent.
(This isn't on a VM, by the way. I'm trying this idea on my laptop.)
brent Later I have to see if Budgie has something like this. that is cool
I hope you can find something for Budgie. Actually, since I posted that, I've lightened it up a bit. And I remembered what Microsot used to call it in Windows: money green. Can't remember what version of Windows was, though.
brent maybe Mr. Flatpak has something like that
Why don't you just load up your Ventoy with a copy of Solus Plasma, and give it an honest evaluation? Yeah, I know 10,000 settings. But you can safely ignore the 9,900 that have sane defaults, and many of the rest are very useful options that don't occur in other DEs. Stuff like fractional scaling, for instance, so you can get the best fit for your screen size and resolution.
You might find that it's nowhere near as intimidating as you thought. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that most Plasma users are ex-Budgie users, with me among them.
You guys have lost me. Can't you just download something off the internet, make the changes you want in a Photoshop type application and save it to your Pictures folder?
BTW, I hate anything but light themes, but Nord is pretty cool. I ran across this webpage that allows you to convert your favorite wallpaper to the Nord style:
I'm quite a fan of a teal background too - Win95 style!
riffer Nice. I remember a similar one but with Solarized scheme.
This thread has made me realize something. It has occurred to me that it almost doesn't matter what wallpaper I install. Sure, when I create or select one, I can look at it and admire it, but, truth be told, in actual daily use I seldom ever see the background.
For many years, I've been a fan of multiple workspaces -- even back in the day when I was using Windows, the free utility VirtuaWin was my friend. More than one workspace makes for a very efficient workflow. With a number of workspaces available I can use nearly every application in its most useful full-screen mode.
Full-screen email, full-screen browser, full-screen games, full-screen VMs, full-screen terminal, and so on. Since each has its own workspace, no app ever competes with any other app for screen space.
So, I seldom ever see the background wallpaper,. Kinda makes me sad.
Plasma also lets you have movie/gif wallpaper that actually plays. Some are pretty cool if they're done right.
