How to Make a Wallpaper Slideshow in iPhoto

The basic Apple desktop background — those distinctive, blue swooshes — is attractive, but a bit impersonal. You probably already know you aren’t stuck with it and can set your own wallpaper. However, and even better, you can tell your Mac to rotate through a series of your favorite photos. I’m going to show you how to do it using iPhoto.

1. Open iPhoto and select the pictures you want to use in your desktop wallpaper rotation.

Command-click to select several photos at once that aren’t contiguous.

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2. Click “Desktop” from the bottom menu in iPhoto.

This opens “Desktop & Screen Saver” in System Preferences. Your desktop is automatically set to the first picture you selected, in this case the lovely photo of a tree fallen on my house.

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3. Decide how often to change pictures and in what order.

At the bottom of the preference pane is the “Change picture” option. Since you’ve selected several photos in iPhoto, this option is already checked. Click the dropdown menu to select a rotation frequency from every 5 seconds to every day, or when you log in or put your Mac to sleep. You may also choose whether to have the system rotate your photos randomly or in the order they are listed.

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4. Which presentation option should you choose?

If you have a widescreen monitor, chances are your photos aren’t in the same proportion as your screen. Here’s what the four options Apple provides mean:

• Fill screen: Centers your photo, cropping either a bit from top and bottom or left and right, depending on the relation of your photo’s proportions to your display’s proportions.
• Stretch to fill screen: Stretches or squishes your photo to fit all its information on the display. Usually this results in undesirable anamorphic scaling.
• Center: Centers your photo and nothing more. If its dimensions are smaller than your display, you’ll see a background color surrounding your photo. If its dimensions are larger than your display, the image will appear cropped.
• Tile: Repeats your photo to fill the screen, beginning in the upper left. If your photo is larger than the display, you’ll see everything that will fit on the display, from the upper left corner outward.

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And that’s it. Now you know how to take your favorite pictures from iPhoto and turn them into a gallery of changing desktop wallpaper!

I love designing and helping people with their Macs. If you have any questions you’d like to see answered, please click my name up top and then “send a message” or e-mail me at amy@greenspeardesign.com.