How do I change the cosmos picture displayed at startup on Mac OS X?

Question

I want to change the purple cosmos picture that is displayed at startup and login time on Mac OS X.

Answer 1

From Change Leopard startup image:

With the release of Mac OS X 10.5 the location and name of this file has changed. You can now find the start-up image in

hardrive ---> system  ---> library ---> coreservices ---> DefaultDesktop.jpg

Or paste this path into the Go to Folder dialog

/System/Library/CoreServices/

The new start-up screen must be saved as a .jpg file.

After you create the jpg image you wish to see on boot-up, rename it DefaultDesktop.jpg, and drop it into your coreservices folder.

Answer 2

With the Terminal or Finder, rename your replacement startup screen image (a JPEG with the same "Desktop Pictures" format of 2560x1600 pixels) to "DefaultDesktop.jpg".

With the Terminal, rename the original desktop image "DefaultDesktop" (a system file) found in the CoreServices folder (/System/Library/CoreServices) to "DefaultDesktop_Original" for backup purposes:

$ cd /System/Library/CoreServices
$ sudo mv DefaultDesktop.jpg DefaultDesktop_Original.jpg

Copy the new file into the CoreServices directory:

$ sudo cp /path_of_replacment_image/DefaultDesktop.jpg /System/Library/CoreServices

Restart your computer!