Renewed Help Section

We’ve been improving the help section at Marmalade Moon to make it really easy to learn how to customise your desktop with icons and wallpapers.

Video Desktop Tutorials

We’ve got a series of brand new video tutorials to make it simple and quick to learn how to change the icons on your computer and how to change your desktop wallpaper. Each tutorial comes with a free, downloadable PDF that you can save to your computer.

Guides for Mac and Windows

There are tutorials for how to customize your icons in Windows 7, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Mac OSX and you can learn how to customize your wallpaper on Mac OSX, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, on your iPad and on your iPhone or iPod.

Tutorials on all Levels

For beginners there’s an An Introduction to Desktop Customization and a series of articles with Suggestions for a Productive Desktop. I hope you find these new resources helpful and just like before all of these resources are free.

Tags: desktop art, getting organized, icons, iPad, iPhone, iPod, Mac, productivity, wallpapers, Windows

We’ve just released Flare for the Mac. A fast, easy, and beautiful darkroom produced by the Iconfactory and ARTIS Software.

With Flare, you can effortlessly add effects and textures to your photos then save them to your Mac, upload them to Flickr, or send them in an email. Choose from a variety of Flare’s built-in high-quality presets or create your own using dozens of individual photographic effects. Once you’ve created the ultimate look for your photographs, save and share your preset creations with other Flare users quickly and easily.

Easy to learn for casual hobbyists, Flare also has the flexibility professional photographers need. Your photo is just the beginning!

Old Rose. ©Marianne alias "macounette"

This wonderful photo of a rose was shot by my Twitter buddy Marianne and is her first go with Flare! She says “This app is great. Easy to understand and lots of possibilities. Love it!” You’ll find Marianne and her iPhone photography on Flickr, Posterous, Tumblr and Twitter.

Give Flare a go before buying it by downloading a trial version of that lets you experience all the powerful features of the application but limits the size of photos that can be exported. You can take advantage of the introductory sale and get 50% off Flare on the Mac App Store. (The sale ends on March 18th)

Go to FlareApp.com to learn more about the application, download additional presets, browse the online users guide and more. Then head on over to the Mac App Store and pick up the all new digital desktop darkroom that is Flare for the Mac.

Tags: Mac, photography, software, texture

The quickest way to customize the desktop picture on your Mac is to open your System Preferences from the Apple menu and click on Desktop & Screensaver.

Drag the image you want to use as your desktop picture onto the image well, the area at the top left where the current desktop picture is previewed.

That’s it!

As your collection of desktop pictures expands, you might like to create a folder for wallpapers so that you can find them easily.

For this, more organized approach, you can add the folder that contains your desktop pictures clicking the plus sign at the bottom of the System Preferences Pane and navigating to the folder you want to use.

Tip: For you can set the Mac OS X to change your desktop picture automatically by checking the option at the bottom of the Desktop and Screen Saver section of System Preferences. You can also specify which folders the pictures will come from, how long they will be displayed (such as every hour or every day) and whether or not to show them in a random order.

How can I find out what size my Mac desktop is?

If you aren’t certain of the size (or resolution) of your monitor, you can find out by checking Displays in your System Preferences.

Click the arrow to save this handy tutorial to your computer.

Find out how to change the icons on a Mac or read some suggestions for how you can make your desktop productive.

Tags: desktop customization, Mac, PDF, video, wallpapers

Mac OSX

Windows 7

Windows Vista

Windows XP

iPad

iPhone

Pick your system for a tutorial on how to change your wallpaper.

Each tutorial includes a video as well as a text version and a downloadable PDF manual for your convenience.

Tags: Mac, wallpapers, Windows

Customizing icons on a Mac is easy, here is a step-by-step guide to get you started.

Don’t worry about which system you are using, this tutorial works for all operating systems! Mac OSX Leopard as well as the older, classic versions of Mac operating systems.

Customizing Desktop Icons

1) First, find the icon you would like to use.
2) Click on the icon once, to select it.
3) Press Command-I to open the Inspector panel.
4) Select the icon at the top part of the Inspector panel and press Command-C to copy the icon. You will notice that it gets outlined with a blue glow when it is selected.
5) Select the file or folder that you want to customize.
6) Press Command-I to open the Inspector panel of the file or folder you want to customize.
7) Select the icon at the top and press Command-V to paste the icon.

You’re done!

If you want to clear a custom icon you have applied, simply select the file or folder, press Command-I to open the Inspector panel for that item, select the icon at the top and press Command-X to remove it.

Illustration with a Blue Bayou folder icon from Luminous Blue Folder Icons.

How can I change the system icons on my Mac?

Customizing System Icons

The default system icons, such as the trash can, the Finder icon, the generic folder, hard disk, removable media, the clippings icon, and many more can be changed to system replacement icons with CandyBar.

For example, you can change all of your generic folder icons with just a click using CandyBar.

CandyBar from Panic and Iconfactory is an icon manager that lets you browse and view your icon collections and apply icons to individual folders in a flash.

With CandyBar you can easily and safely change system level icons in Mac OS X. Drag and drop to customize toolbar icons, folders, drives and OS X Trash icons with CandyBar. You can customize the dock too.

Click the arrow to save this handy tutorial to your computer.

Find out how to change the wallpaper on your Mac or read some suggestions for how you can make your desktop productive.

Tags: desktop customization, Mac, PDF, video