Here’s an AppleScript I use to quickly toggle desktop visibility for taking screenshots and recording screencasts that I thought might be useful for others.

Copy and paste the code below into AppleScript Editor, or your editor of choice, compile and save. As always, scripts like this work best using FastScripts from Red Sweater Software.

tell application "System Events"
    set frontMostApp to short name of the first process whose frontmost is true
end tell
try
    set theDefault to ((do shell script "defaults read com.apple.finder CreateDesktop") as integer) as boolean
on error -- if the default value doesn't already exist, create it.
    do shell script "defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop 1"
    set theDefault to ((do shell script "defaults read com.apple.finder CreateDesktop") as integer) as boolean
end try
do shell script "defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop " & (((not theDefault) as integer) as string)
tell application "Finder" to quit
delay 1
tell application "Finder" to launch
tell application "System Events"
    set the frontmost of process frontMostApp to true
end tell

Note: This single script turns off the desktop if it’s on, and turns it on if it’s off - just to clear up the question should it need to be asked.

Edit 2023-04-23: Special thanks to Adrian Nier for the recommendation to use System Events to set the frontMostApp process to true again.