How to Create Custom Wallpapers for iPhone 7, 7 Plus, 6s, 6s Plus, and SE

While Apple is beloved by fans throughout the world for its minimalist design concept and the consistency of its aesthetic across its product lines, people naturally desire a creative outlet to express their individuality or at the very least personalize their accessories.

One of the easiest and most intuitive ways to make your iPhone truly yours is to personalize your wallpaper. It is, after all, the first thing that you see when you unlock your phone. Luckily this can easily be accomplished in a few quick steps.

For those of you who own an iPhone 7, 7 Plus, 6s, 6s Plus, and SE, we walk you through the various steps below.

It’s important to know the resolution (number of pixels displayed by width and by height) of your phone, which we’ve listed below. This will come in handy once it comes time to select and crop the appropriate image.

iPhone 7: 750 x 1334 resolution

iPhone 7 Plus: 1080 x 1920 resolution

iPhone 6s: 750 x 1334 resolution

iPhone 6s Plus: 1080 x 1920 resolution

iPhone SE: 640 x 1136 resolution

The rule of thumb is that you want to select a wallpaper image with a resolution size that is equivalent to or greater than your phone’s resolution so that the image is not grainy or blurred once it is applied. As you can see, the aspect ratio (ratio of width to height) for all three models is 9:16.

1. Select a high-resolution image that is the same or larger size than your phone’s resolution through a Google image search or similar tool.
2. Open Adobe Photoshop, or another image cropping tool, and set the dimensions of width and height to match the dimensions of your iPhone model. For example, if you own an iPhone 6s, you’ll want to set the image width to 750 pixels and the height to 1334 pixels. This should create a 750 by 1334 pixel grid on Photoshop with an aspect ratio of 9:16.
3. Drag your selected image into your Photoshop grid. Resize or drag the image until the portion of the image that you want as your wallpaper fits exactly within boundaries of the grid.
4. Save your cropped image as a JPEG file.
5. Send the image file to your phone via Airdrop, email, or Dropbox.
6. Once you receive the file, save the image to your phone. For example, if you emailed the image to yourself, find the image in your inbox, tap on the photo, and then tap on the “Save Image” option. The hard part is now over and it should be smooth sailing from here on out.
7. Press your home button to return to your home screen and tap on Settings.
8. Tap “Wallpaper” and then tap on “Choose a New Wallpaper.”
9. Tap on “Camera Roll” and find the image you’ve saved onto your phone. It should be one of the first images you see.
10. Tap on “Set” and you’re good to go! While you will have the option of moving the image and scaling it to your screen, you won’t have to because you’ve already cropped your image to fit your screen’s dimensions precisely.