10.3: Force image masks for user pictures on login panel
Nov 19, '03 10:31:00AM • Contributed by: Durandal
If you've worked tediously on the perfect user picture, nicely masked to antialias against the background of the login window, you were no doubt chagrined when you found that Panther doesn't respect your mask when you selecting the image in the Accounts preference pane. This is because, for some odd reason, Panther insists on putting a white square around the image, regardless of whether you want it to or not. This did not happen in Jaguar, to my knowledge.
Anyway, the workaround for this is simple. Note that this works for TIFF images with alpha channels; I haven't tested other formats. Save the TIFF file and then just name it com.apple.user[UID]pictureCache.tiff and drop it in /Library/Caches. If your user ID is 501, then name the image com.apple.user501pictureCache.tiff. The Accounts preference pane will simply load the cached image without question or trying to put a white square around it.
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