Desktop background resolution dropping in Mountain Lion

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Desktop background resolution dropping in Mountain Lion

15" Non-retina Mid 2012, 2.3Ghz i7, 10.8.1, 4GB RAM.

I have a folder in Dropbox that I put my desktops/background pictures into to share across all my machines. On my Mid 2009 15" 3.06 C2D running Snow Leopard, those same pictures (all of them at resolutions well above 1440x900) are crisp and clear as they cycle through every minute. On my brand new machine, however, about 1 in 5 of those same pictures will be pixelated and appear to be a thumbnail of the image blown up to desktop resolution.

Example:

Screenshot of my pixelated desktop: http://i.imgur.com/GeZyK.jpg

Original image (10,179 x 1,400px): http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAn_Teallach_panorama.jpg

Normal res'd desktop screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/EKxrk.jpg

Any idea why some desktops aren't displayed at full res? Here's what my "Desktops" System Preference Pane looks like: http://i.imgur.com/oXPH4.png

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.1)

Posted on Sep 14, 2012 10:02 PM

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Answer 1

Sep 21, 2012 1:56 AM in response to jsklundt

'm having this problem too. Definitely a bug not a feature lol.

I noticed that in the Desktop & Screen Saver system preference window if you choose "center" on a big image the preview window shows the correct thing happening ie the image is centred to its native resolution but the actual desktop image is fit to the screen. Here's a picture showing what I mean. http://cl.ly/JdSd

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