How to change the wallpaper of Dashboard in Mac OS X Lion

Mac OS X Lion, Apple's eighth major release of Mac OS X, included a revamped Dashboard application that acts as a separate space (or "desktop," if you prefer) to the left of all of the rest of your spaces (or desktops). We've already shown you how to switch back to the old Dashboard from OS X Snow Leopard if you absolutely hate the new version.

However, one complaint many upgraders to Lion have been mentioning is the background/wallpaper that Apple chose for use in Dashboard (that dark, dotted wallpaper). Many don't like it, but luckily, with a little modding, you can easily change the background to whatever you would like. Here's how to do just that:

Step 1: Find the resolution of your display. To do this, open System Preferences (Applications>System Preferences or Apple menu>System Preferences). Click on the "Displays" preference pane and look at which resolution is currently applied to your display.

Step 2: Find the background that you'd like to use. It can be anything - a nice wood wallpaper or the same one you're using for your regular desktop(s) on Lion. Open the image up in a photo editor (for example, Photoshop) and resize it to match the resolution of your display. It may be easier for some of you to find an image that is the exact resolution of your display from the beginning, as you may not have access to a photo editor with resizing capabilities. Save the resized image to your desktop, making sure that it is in .PNG format and named pirelli. Save another copy of the same, resized image in .PNG format, titled mini_pirelli.

Step 3: Navigate to the following directory via Finder: /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app. Right-click on Dock.app and click "Show Package Contents." Then, navigate to: Contents>Resources. Find the image called "pirelli.png" and re-name it to "pirelli-old.png." Next, find the image called "mini_pirelli.png" and re-name it to "mini_pirelli-old.png."

Step 4: Drag-and-drop the images that you saved to your desktop (both of them) into this folder. You may be asked to enter your password - make sure you do so correctly.

Step 5: Once the images copied into the folder, open Terminal (Applications>Utilities>Terminal) and type in the following command exactly as it appears: killall Dock. You should notice your Dock disappear and the background of your desktop go gray for a few seconds. 

That should be it! Check Dashboard and you should have a new background for it!