How To Change a Picture on your Lock Screen in Windows 10

Jamie Read more June 8, 2021

Windows 10 has a lot of personalization options built in and more can be added with some carefully chosen programs. I tend to stick to the default theme selector as it works well and doesn’t use too many resources. If you want to know how to set a picture on your lock screen in Windows 10 and customize it more to your taste, this tutorial is for you.

How To Change a Picture on your Lock Screen in Windows 10

One of the first customizations we want to do with Windows 10 is set a new lock screen image. Then we can remove the ads and ‘suggestions’.

How to set a picture on your lock screen

As you can see from the image above, the default image isn’t a great one. It came as standard with the Windows 10 Creator’s Update and needed changing right away.

Navigate to Settings and Personalization. This is where we will be doing all our work.
Select Lock screen then select Windows spotlight under Background.
Select Picture or Slideshow depending on what you require.
If you select Picture, select one provided or click Browse. Select an image from the Explorer window that appears.
If you select Slideshow, select the folder you want to use.
Toggle off ‘Get fun facts, tips and more from Windows and Cortana on your lock screen’.

Now when you see your lock screen you should see either the image or slideshow you selected above. You should also no longer see Windows ads cluttering it up either!

How to change desktop wallpaper in Windows 10

The default wallpapers in Windows 10 are pretty good but they aren’t your own. If you want something more personal on your background, that’s easy to fix.

Navigate to Settings and Personalization if you closed the window.
Select Background and Choose your picture.
Select one of the defaults or select Browse.
Select an image and it should automatically be applied to your desktop background as you click it.

If you have multiple monitors, things get a little more involved but it is still simple to do. I run three monitors and like to have a different image on each. Here’s how to do it.

Press the Windows button and R to bring up a run command window.
Type or paste ‘control /name Microsoft.Personalization /page pageWallpaper’ and hit Enter. This will bring up the old school desktop background window that the new Settings UI replaced.
Browse or navigate to an image you want to use and right click it.
Select the monitor you want it to appear on.
Rinse and repeat for all monitors.

How to set a picture on your lock screen in Windows 103

How to change themes in Windows 10

As you have been working in the Settings menu for a few minutes now, you will likely have seen the Themes menu item on the left. We will go there now.

Navigate to Settings and Personalization if you closed it.
Select Themes. This will bring up the theme settings window.
Select a theme as you like. Choose a default, make you own or download themes from Microsoft.
Your choices will be reflected in the four elements at the top of the themes window. They are Background, Color, Sounds and Mouse cursor. You can select each individually if you like or use an entire theme.

Once selected, just close the window. It will automatically save your choices.

How to change colors in Windows 10

The other way to personalize Windows 10 without digging too deep is with color settings. Here you can change the overall look and feel of menus, some windows, the Taskbar and Settings menu. As you can see from mine, I use the dark theme. This is selectable at the bottom of the Color menu.

Navigate to Settings and Personalization.
Select Colors. This is the screen that changes everything.
Under Choose your color, select either the Light, Dark or Custom theme as this has a bearing on what colors you choose.
Scroll up to Accent color and select a color that adds to the theme you chose.
Select ‘Start, taskbar and action center’ to add more of your chosen color.
You can also select ‘Title bars and window borders’ for even more.

Personalization is a simple way to make your computer more comfortable to use and to generally be around. Getting this right makes a surprising amount of difference to how comfortable you feel and you may be surprised at the colors you find easiest to live with on screen!