OS X Yosemite: The Missing Manual

Desktop & Screen Saver

This panel offers two ways to show off OS X’s glamorous graphics features: desktop pictures and screensavers.

Desktop Pictures

OS X comes with mountain of desktop pictures, ranging from National Geographic–style nature photos to plain solid colors. To install a new background picture, first choose one of the image categories in the list at the left side of the window, as shown in Figure 9-10.

GEM IN THE ROUGH: Secrets of the Screensaver Modules

The canned screensaver modules are stored in your System→Library→Screen Savers folder. If you right-click (two-finger click) one of the icons inside and choose Show Package Contents from the shortcut menu, you’ll find a Contents→Resources folder that contains the individual image files for some of the slideshowish modules (the outer-space photos, for example).

Why bother? Because some of these spectacular photos make really good desktop pictures. You’re free to copy them out of the Resources folder for that purpose.

Your choices include Desktop Pictures (muted, soft-focus swishes and swirls and a few nature shots—like the new Yosemite cliff shot); Nature (bugs, water, outer space); Plants (flowers, soft-focus leaves); Art (a collection of famous paintings by Monet, Degas, Seurat, and other canvas superheroes); Black & White (breathtaking monochrome shots); Abstract (swishes and swirls with wild colors); Patterns (a pair of fabric closeups); and Solid Colors (simple grays, blues, and greens).

Tip

You can choose any solid color—not ...