Mac Daniel's Advice

Desktop Pictures

Evan Kleiman - 2001.03.26

Q. I'm getting tired of looking at the old blue kitty cats on my desktop. Can you tell me where I can get more - and better looking - desktop pictures?

A. The number one element to be customized on a Macintosh user's desktop seems to be the one thing everyone sees the most - the desktop picture. Unfortunately, Apple only provides a few different choices for the desktop picture or pattern. But now there are a large variety of sites out there that you can use to get some pretty cool new desktop pictures.

The first, and one of my favorites, is a great site that's been around for awhile. At Digital Blasphemy, the speciality of the day is always some kind of freaky, way-out, desktop picture. Most of these photos on this site have been rendered with programs such as Bryce 3D, so you can imagine how cool they look. In fact, the last five out of six or seven desktop pictures I've had have been from this site, and they all yield a "Woah, cool pic, dude!" or something like that when one of my friends or family members views my new desktop.

Another site is one for the Mac-Evangelist in all of us. At Mac Desktops there is a large selection of the common types of desktop pictures, such as pictures of trees, water, landscapes, etc. But, there are also a few larger sections at this fine site dedicated to pro Mac images. There are very many pictures of iMacs (many of which are in rather creative places, such as "iMacs in Copenhagen"), as well as many other Apple-related desktop pictures.

Even though by today's standards a $1,200 iMac is considered low-end, there are some real "extra-low-end" computers out there that are running pre-Mac OS 8 systems that are incapable of displaying full desktop pictures on their own. These users have two options: use plain old desktop patterns or get a program to display desktop pictures on your Mac.

The first option, which is probably the easiest, is just by getting some new patterns for you to use on your computer. Probably one of the best places for this is the Hyper-Mac desktop textures archive. As an added bonus, you can use these patterns as well as any other standard Mac OS desktop pattern as a Window Monkey pattern.

But if you don't want to use the plain old patterns, you can get Decor, an extension that will give your pre-OS 8 Mac the ability to use basically any GIF, JPEG, etc. as a desktop picture.

In the end, pretty much any desktop you see out there can be yours for the taking. The only hard part is finding the Kaleidoscope theme to match it!

Evan Kleiman has been writing for Low End Mac since January 1999. He also runs his own site, Evansite. Evan uses an iMac, along with some vintage hardware. You can read more about his computing experience in The Many Macs of Evan Kleiman.

Join us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

Not sure if you should upgrade your old Mac or replace it? Check the Mac Daniel index to see if we've already addressed your problem.

Recent Mac Daniel columns

Links for the Day

Recent Content on Low End Mac

Recent Deals

About LEM Support Usage Privacy Contact

Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2012 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc. unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iPad iPhone, iMac, iPod, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.
  Advice is presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Email may be published at our discretion unless marked "not for publication"; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.

Custom Search

Share

Follow Low End Mac on Twitter
Join Low End Mac on Facebook

Low End Mac Reader Specials

Quantcast

TypeStyler 11 is now in the Mac App Store!! -- Special Introductory Price of $59.95!! -- To Buy From The Mac App Store Click Here Now!! Or buy direct from Strider Software.

Quantcast

Quantcast

Quantcast

Poker Mac Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker and Mac Casino applications in minutes.

Quantcast

Quantcast

Quantcast

Quantcast

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
Cult of Mac
Shrine of Apple
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac Museum
DealMac
Deal Brothers
Mac2Sell
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End Mac FAQ

Affiliates

Amazon.com
The Apple Store
The iTunes Store
PC Connection Express
GainSaver
Parallels Desktop for Mac
eBay

Low End Mac's Amazon.com store

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link