Desktop icons covered up by dock

this is something that is so annoying, that i must have overlooked a setting somewhere. whenever anything downloads or saves to my desktop, some of the icons are overlapped by the dock.
my dock is fixed, with magnification off.
i have 3 columns of icons on my desktop. as items are added, the OS puts them at the bottom of the columns. the end result is that my desktop looks like crap, with icons partially tucked beneath the dock.

thanks for responding. i tried your suggestion, but it didn't seem to work. when i download a file, for example, to the desktop, the os still tucks it under the dock. it's almost like it wants to use every bit of space in that lower right corner!
I can't see the ds file, or a way to make it visible. i did have a problem earlier, and apple support suggested zapping the pram. the problem i had was that any open application in the dock would not show a new window when clicked on. for example, if mail.app was running, but the message window was closed, clicking on the mail icon from the dock wouldn't open the message window. ditto for safari, itunes, etc. even clicking on the finder icon wouldn't open a finder window.
i don't have that problem now. but it all seems like strange icon behavior in my book

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When you mark the appropriate posts as Helpful (5 pts) 2 available, or Solved (10 pts) 1 available, you are Thanking the contributors, by awarding them points.
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? Help & Terms of Use, located under your login name, on all "Discussions" pages.
Specifically What are question answers?.
The Helpful and Solved buttons, that award points, are to the left of the Reply button in each response.
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WBW wrote:
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Mac Owners Support Group
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iphoto icon bounces in the dock but doesn't open

Hi Terence, I hope you can help me too. I have a problem with opening iPhoto. It has always worked fine but now as soon as I click on the icon in the Dock or connect my camera I get the enclosed screen (see below). I have tried to re-install from iLife 11 Install Disk with no joy. I have moved my plist file to Trash. Any further suggestions please will be greatly appreciated.
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Process:         iPhoto [240]
Path:            /Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/MacOS/iPhoto
Identifier:      com.apple.iPhoto
Version:         ??? (???)
Build Info:      iPhotoProject-5270000~1
Code Type:       X86 (Native)
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OS Version:      Mac OS X 10.6.8 (10K549)
Report Version: 6
Interval Since Last Report:          155049 sec
Crashes Since Last Report:           6
Per-App Crashes Since Last Report:   6
Anonymous UUID:                      413183FB-E0A0-4D96-A97D-68916344CB13
Exception Type: EXC_BREAKPOINT (SIGTRAP)
Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000002, 0x0000000000000000
Crashed Thread: 0
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Library not loaded: /Library/Frameworks/iLifePageLayout.framework/Versions/A/iLifePageLayout
Referenced from: /Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/MacOS/iPhoto
Reason: image not found
Binary Images:
0x8fe00000 - 0x8fe4162b dyld 132.1 (???) <39AC3185-E633-68AA-7CD6-1230E7F1CEF4> /usr/lib/dyld
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Desktop icons covered up by dock

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