Get back some colors in Finder's sidebar

Since Lion, every item in the Finder's sidebar are gray. I miss the colors, as they were helpful to quickly find a specific item.
The problem is the same in Open File dialog box.

Do you know of a way to get back some colors in the Finder's sidebar?

I'm ok to modify files owned by the System (such as system images), but I'm not ok to use SIMBL. This project seems nice, but I don't want to use it.

Solution 1:

You aren't alone in wanting the color back. Unfortunately, it looks as if the Finder code actually shifts the hue from the fully-colored icon resources that are included (see the Go menu in Finder, which has the colored versions).

According to a commenter on this MacThemes Forum thread, the developer documentation actually details how to shift the hue in the same way that Finder does; with the associated speculation that we'll see grey icons in every app that has a sidebar in the future.

Looks to me as if you can bite the bullet and use ColorfulSidebar (with SIMBL) or live with the grey.