Can we extract a Mac desktop background image?

I really like the zen garden background and would love to be able to work with it as an image file. Any idea on how to access it in the system? in the file package somewhere? can search around, but thought one of the experts on the board might have a thought on it.
thanks!

please ignore.... just found it in the HD/Library/Desktop Pictures/ folder...

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Is there an ARD command or Unix command that I can send to reset the desktop background image to default?

I was forced to create a local user with an automatic login on all of the machines in the building. I listed off many various issues that could come arise by doing this but was tuned out. Now people are changing all of the desktop backgrounds to some pretty inappropriate images. I forewarned the person ordering this that this may be one of the many issues that would arise when doing away with our server based logins, and now I am charged with fixing every desktop every time someone changes it to something inappropriate.
Is that an Apple Remote Desktop command or a Unix command that I can send through ARD v3.5.3 to the machines to reset the desktop background image to the default Aqua Blue jpeg image located in the /MacintoshHD/Library/Desktop\ Pictures/Aqua\ Blue.jpg.
The machines that I am dealing with have OS X 10.4.11, OS X 10.5.8, OS X 10.6.8, and OS X 10.7.4 installed on them, but the OS X 10.4.11 machines are the ones that are creating the biggest issue so I would like to deal with those first.

Ya, I'd love to have the computers connected to the Xserver, unfortunately against my heeding, I was ordered to take them off of the Xserver, so they only have a local account that automatically logs in on startup, and even though I have Parental Controls set, I can not stop them from going to Safari, selecting an inappropriate image and setting it as the background, so now I’ve been ordered to fix all of the backgrounds that people are messing with.
My Xserver is running OS X 10.4.11 Server Edition. Yes, I would love a new server, but that’s not happening due to budget cuts.
So what I am hoping for is a command that I can put into Apple Remote Desktop v3.5.3 and push out to all of the computers via its Unix commands and reset all the desktops to their default image.

How to block changes of desktop background image

I manage a 30-computer Mac lab in a public high school and I would like to prevent users from changing the desktop background image.
As far as I know, there are two ways to change the desktop background image: through System Preferences and by right-clicking an image and selecting Set Desktop Picture.
Blocking System Preferences is easily done through Parental Controls.
But how do I prevent the right-click, Set Desktop Picture method of changing the desktop image?
You can imagine the kinds of images that end up as desktop backgrounds in a high school computer lab.

You might try going to System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts. In the left pane select Services, then uncheck the item "Set Desktop Picture" under Pictures in the right pane. Once that's done, block that prefs pane.

When viewing some websites my desktop background image shows as the page background...why...and how do I fix this?

It seems that the current version of Firefox does not understand how to process style sheets. Instead of the stylesheet background color or image, I am now seeing my PC's desktop background image. This does not happen with IE or Chrome. When checking the error console, I get "Warning: Unknown property 'zoom'. Declaration dropped. Source File: http://trustserve.net/themes/ModernBlue/templates_cached/EN/global.css Line: 4"
I am not trying to zoom.
Any ideas on how to fix this. I can't use Firefox with these problems and I really liked it prior to these problems.

I thought I had it disabled. I enabled aero and then disabled to be sure, and still have the problem, but that was a very good idea. Thanks.
The problem started shortly after I installed two new programs, a graphics program, and an anti-virus. I just removed both programs and restarted the computer and that seems to have solved the problem. Your idea about Aero gave me the idea that one, or both of these programs changed some of my system settings. I am now going to install them, one at a time, and see if the transparency problem returns. I'll post my findings.

Desktop Background Images Dithering

All of my desktop background images have been dithering, despite the fact that my display is set to 32-bit color. This can be demonstrated by opening up the image used for the desktop in an image-editing application and viewing them both side-by-side. Here's a screenshot of such a comparison:
This is a major bummer - anyone have an idea what is wrong?

I should have mentioned that the dimensions of the background image exactly match the resolution of the monitor (1280x1024).
Also, yes, it is an LCD monitor, but it is hooked up via DVI.
I am wondering if it might have to do with the display card hardware (GeForce FX 5200), as I did not have this problem under the same circumstances, in tiger, but under different hardware...
So, no, still not solved - but thanks for your input.

Can we resize and change the background image in a 2 page layout?

I am a two page layout report in RTF. Can I use different background image on page 1 and page 2? The first page background will not be repeated but the second page will. Also, it seems when we insert a background image by going "Format -> Background -> Fill effect -> Picture", after we finished the whole process we can't get the background image to fit with the page, can we resize it to be fit with the page? Thanks for your help!

Yes. Select the image and go to the Inspector/Hyperlink/Link pane and use the Link to One of my Pages option.
Remember: the photo must be added to the page by dragging it onto the page and then be selected. It can't be added as a background image with the Inspector/Page/Layout pane.
OT

Setting the desktop background image via Powershell

UPDATE:
I found the solution that addressed my problem, which I posted in a post below. Keeping the original post for Internet historical reasons as I the hope this helps someone else later on in their search for a solution.
===============
I have Bing'ed and I have Google'd and I haven't found a solid answer to setting the desktop wallpaper programmically. I am trying to do this via PowerShell, but I would be happy for any other language flavor or application to work.
Below is the code I have tried to set the desktop background image. This has been scrounged from a few sources across the web. This solution works 25% of the time and I haven't figured out what the cause for success or failure of the execution. Or maybe
it's neither, but waiting for Explorer to refresh. The only way to see the change 100% is to log out and log back in.
I am running Windows 8.1 btw.
Thank you for looking.
Function Get-WallPaper()
$wp=Get-ItemProperty -path 'HKCU:\Control Panel\Desktop\' -name wallpaper
if(!$wp.WallPaper)
{ "Wall paper is not set" }
Else
{"Wall paper is set to $($wp.WallPaper)" }
Function Refresh-Explorer {
$code = @'
private static readonly IntPtr HWND_BROADCAST = new IntPtr(0xffff);
private const int WM_SETTINGCHANGE = 0x1a;
private const int SMTO_ABORTIFHUNG = 0x0002;
[System.Runtime.InteropServices.DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError=true, CharSet=CharSet.Auto)]
static extern bool SendNotifyMessage(IntPtr hWnd, uint Msg, UIntPtr wParam,
IntPtr lParam);
[System.Runtime.InteropServices.DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
private static extern IntPtr SendMessageTimeout ( IntPtr hWnd, int Msg, IntPtr wParam, string lParam, uint fuFlags, uint uTimeout, IntPtr lpdwResult );
[System.Runtime.InteropServices.DllImport("Shell32.dll")]
private static extern int SHChangeNotify(int eventId, int flags, IntPtr item1, IntPtr item2);
public static void Refresh() {
SHChangeNotify(0x8000000, 0x1000, IntPtr.Zero, IntPtr.Zero);
SendMessageTimeout(HWND_BROADCAST, WM_SETTINGCHANGE, IntPtr.Zero, null, SMTO_ABORTIFHUNG, 100, IntPtr.Zero);
Add-Type -MemberDefinition $code -Namespace MyWinAPI -Name Explorer
[MyWinAPI.Explorer]::Refresh()
Function Set-WallPaper($Value)
echo "Setting background to: $value"
Refresh-Explorer
Set-ItemProperty -path 'HKCU:\Control Panel\Desktop\' -name wallpaper -value $value
rundll32.exe user32.dll, UpdatePerUserSystemParameters
#sleep 1
rundll32.exe user32.dll, UpdatePerUserSystemParameters
#sleep 1
rundll32.exe user32.dll, UpdatePerUserSystemParameters
#sleep 1
Refresh-Explorer
#Stop-Process -ProcessName explorer
NOTE: I left in a few commented out statements. I found that they do not offer any help in formulating a solution.
Thank you.

Great news! I found the solution and all props and credit goes to
jsd1982 of the XKCD comic
forum from a post he made in 2007 and some deep search kung-fu Googling on my part. Here is the
direct link to the post.
This solution has worked for me 100% of the time on Windows 8. The only gotcha I found (minor detail) was when setting this process to run as a scheduled task, I had to run it as elevated privileges for the code to compile in memory. Running this function
from PowerShell at the command prompt was fine.
NOTE: The code below is a slight trimmed down version posted by jsd1982 to just set the desktop wallpaper. I removed the image fetching from the Internet and the color inversion.
# Credit to jsd1982
function Compile-Csharp ([string] $code, $FrameworkVersion="v2.0.50727",
[Array]$References)
# Get an instance of the CSharp code provider
$cp = new-object Microsoft.CSharp.CSharpCodeProvider
# Build up a compiler params object...
$framework = [System.IO.Path]::Combine($env:windir, "Microsoft.NET\Framework\$FrameWorkVersion")
$refs = new-object Collections.ArrayList
$refs.AddRange( @("${framework}\System.dll",
# "${mshhome}\System.Management.Automation.dll",
# "${mshhome}\System.Management.Automation.ConsoleHost.dll",
"${framework}\system.windows.forms.dll",
"${framework}\System.data.dll",
"${framework}\System.Drawing.dll",
"${framework}\System.Xml.dll"))
if ($references.Count -ge 1)
$refs.AddRange($References)
$cpar = New-Object System.CodeDom.Compiler.CompilerParameters
$cpar.GenerateInMemory = $true
$cpar.GenerateExecutable = $false
$cpar.CompilerOptions = "/unsafe";
$cpar.OutputAssembly = "custom"
$cpar.ReferencedAssemblies.AddRange($refs)
$cr = $cp.CompileAssemblyFromSource($cpar, $code)
if ( $cr.Errors.Count)
$codeLines = $code.Split("`n");
foreach ($ce in $cr.Errors)
write-host "Error: $($codeLines[$($ce.Line - 1)])"
$ce |out-default
Throw "INVALID DATA: Errors encountered while compiling code"
[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Drawing") > $null
[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Runtime") > $null
# C# code to post to wallpaper
$code = @'
using System;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Drawing.Imaging;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.IO;
using System.Net;
using Microsoft.Win32;
namespace test
public class Wallpaper
const int SPI_SETDESKWALLPAPER = 20 ;
const int SPIF_UPDATEINIFILE = 0x01;
const int SPIF_SENDWININICHANGE = 0x02;
[DllImport("user32.dll", CharSet=CharSet.Auto)]
static extern int SystemParametersInfo (int uAction , int uParam , string lpvParam , int fuWinIni) ;
public static void SetWallpaper(string uri)
System.IO.Stream s = new WebClient().OpenRead(uri);
Image img = System.Drawing.Image.FromStream(s);
Bitmap copy = new Bitmap(img.Width, img.Height);
Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(copy);
Rectangle rect = new Rectangle(0, 0, img.Width, img.Height);
g.DrawImage(img, rect, 0, 0, img.Width, img.Height, GraphicsUnit.Pixel);
g.Dispose();
img.Dispose();
// Save to a temp file:
string tempPath = Path.Combine(Path.GetTempPath(), "wallpaper.bmp");
copy.Save(tempPath, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Bmp);
RegistryKey key = Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey( @"Control Panel\Desktop", true ) ;
key.SetValue(@"WallpaperStyle", 1.ToString( ) ) ;
key.SetValue(@"TileWallpaper", 0.ToString( ) ) ;
SystemParametersInfo( SPI_SETDESKWALLPAPER,
0,
tempPath,
SPIF_UPDATEINIFILE | SPIF_SENDWININICHANGE );
function Set-Wallpaper([string] $imgurl)
compile-CSharp $code
[test.Wallpaper]::SetWallpaper($imgurl)

Cannot change Desktop Background image

When I go to change my Desktop Background, it will try and load up the pictures in my Pictures folder (but no subfolders). I can switch my background to one of these images, even though the "Loading" progress bar is still visible.
Here is the odd thing, however. If I click on any of the other types of images (Apple Images, nature, Plants, Black & White, Abstract, and Solid Colors), nothing appears. I jumped over to another user on the same computer, and those images populated properly. Any ideas on what is going wrong? Why can't I change my background image? I've had this problem with both Mac OS 10.5.0 and 10.5.1.

I managed to fix this problem.
I did verify and repair permissions just for kicks. Not sure if that helped or not, but I did it anyway.
Then I went back into the System Pref pane, and clicked on Apple Images, then clicked on the Change Picture checkbox. While none of the images appear in the white box, my background did change to one of the Apple Images (such as the black and purple Leopard-only background). I then closed System Preferences, opened it back up, and the images loaded up properly this time!

Selecting and deselecting desktop background images

Can I select which Apple photos to use when setting desktop background to Change Picture? Put another way, can I deselect pictures I don't want to see? I hoped the "-" box at the bottom of the list would let me deselect folders or even specific images within folders, but it doesn't. I would like to have only the nature pictures in the Change Picture rotation.

You would have to create your own folder or album with select photos for this type control.
Use the + sign to add your album.

How to find desktop background image file

I am preparing an old PowerBook G4 laptop to be sold. I had previously lent it to a friend and I am selling it to another friend. The friend to whom I lent it asked me for the desktop image file so he can use it as his desktop on the Mac he owns.
I shot that photo years ago and I can't find the original .jpg for it, so I am hoping that I can find the desktop version of it before I finish preparing my PowerBook for sale. I have searched everywhere, but that image file does not show up on the PowerBook.
I figure that since I can see the photo when I am logged in, it must be somewhere, but where? I originally had it in iPhoto, but it was deleted from there at least two years ago. This PowerBook only has one account, so there's not a lot of places to look through.
If anyone has any pointers on how to find an image file on a PowerBook running Mac OS X 10.4.11, please let me know.

HI Stanely,
Try going to System Preferences/Desktop&ScreenSaver. Click the Desktop tab. Now, go thru the folders listed there to see if the image shows up there. If it does, then go to Spotlight and type in the name of the folder where the image was. Spotlight will populate a list for you. At the top of the list click where it says: Show All. A pane will open. Look for the folder, then on the right click the little white circle with an "i" in it. That will give you the path to find the folder where the image resides.
You can search Spotlight by typing in these extensions: jpg tiff png pict gif bmp psp that's another way to search for an image.
Also, open a Finder window and look in the Sidebar on the left. Click where it says: Pictures. Might be in there also.
Carolyn

Satellite C660/C660D - Desktop background image not loading

Satellite C660/C660D: Trying to load any image from whatever source fails, with the error message 'an internal error has occurred'. I have tried all the procedures in control panel; none allow a change of background image, although colours can still be altered, as well as themes.
Microsoft advises this is a manufacturer issue, as my OS is OEM.
Can anyone help identify this error and suggest how to fix it?

>Microsoft advises this is a manufacturer issue, as my OS is OEM.
This is a typical MS answer if the Windows system has not been purchased separately LOL and this is NOT a notebook problem.
Would recommend checking this MS knowledge base article:
+Unable to change background picture in Windows 7+
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2504610

Where can i get awesome mbp desktop backgrounds?

i want to get awesome backgrounds other than what i have already, well just to add new ones to it... can anybody please help me. if possible, i should download it for free. Thanks everyone.

Trent,
I second interfacelift.com. Some amazing desktop backgrounds on the site, and downloadable for optimum resolution!
Regards
Stu

HT4437 how can i mirror my mac desktop onto my apple tv, and i dont mean itunes content only.

i want to know how to mirror my mac desktop screen onto my apple tv not limited to just itunes contents.

You need a recent Mac (2011 or later) running mountaion lion. The alternative for older hardware is airparrot

FCS showing desktop background images

I recently purchased and installed FCS, I'm running into an issue where the timeline, viewer, browser, and etc are showing the desktop background and cannot figure out what's going on.

If you have ShapeShifter installed, uninstall it and the problem should go away.
-DH

Snow Leopard Desktop Background Images

Ok I don't know how but I deleted the Macintosh HD/Library/Desktop images folder and now am missing the Apple images therein. How can I reinstall those images/backgrounds without doing a total reinstall of OS X?

The Music was still in the folder but the Icon under PLACES in Finder was deleted. I went into the Library folder and copied the Music folder icon and pasted back under PLACES. It changed to the original "music note" icon and everything is fine.
I have been backing up my Mac HD but even under Time Machine previous backup screens no longer showed the "music note" icon. Very odd.
I did download Pacifist but I would have to know exactly where the "music note" setup package was located in order to open it. It does look like a good utility to have. Thanks for the recommendation.
MR

Can we extract a Mac desktop background image?

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