Selected Desktop Background Won't Save

I generally use my photos from an external drive as my desktop background.  This was all working great until Lion.  Now, everytime I restart the computer one of the apple backgrounds appears (the space one).  I have deleted the plists and restarted, etc and nothing seems to work.  What's going on.  I'm running a 27" imac with intel processor (new last June).

That is a corrupt preference file.
Download the free TinkerTool to tun on Invisible Items, now look in your Users/Library/Preferences folder for a
com.apple.systempreferences.plist
file and delete it, reboot the machine and reset your system preferences.
turn off invisible items in TinkerTool

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    That is a corrupt preference file.
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    turn off invisible items in TinkerTool

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    William Kruidenier wrote:
    I use a folder of pictures to rotate randomly as my desktop background image. Whenever I restart the computer, the background image defaults to the purple-ish Snow Leopard background -- the one that looks sort of like a purple sunrise. I then have to open the Desktop/Screensaver preference pane and re-designate the folder with the pics in it. After that, it works perfectly -- until I restart. Then I have to go through the same drill.
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    User meaning Home ? 
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