I use the same image for my login and my desktop. Lately I’ve been using one from Samuel Adams. I wasn’t impressed by the original and decided to play around with desaturation. I thought it might be cool to desaturate the entire image for the login and use the partially desaturated image for the desktop. You will need the following:
- An image that will look great after removing the color from everything other than one distinct foreground element.
- An image editor that performs desaturation. I am using a demo of Pixelmator ($59 after 30 day demo). Pixelmator is the best all around image editing software available for the Mac bar none. I am sure that you could do the same thing using GIMP which is free but frankly, GIMP on a Mac sucks really hard. I will be purchasing a license for Pixelmator as soon as I have the scratch.
- Third — You need a copy of Loginox. Loginox is an app that will change your login image via drag and drop, and it works with Snow Leopard now!
Once you prep your images, simply use Loginox to switch out your login screen, and the Desktop & Screen Saver preference pane in System Preferences to switch out your desktop. Now log out from the Apple Menu and log back in to see the magic.
