The Social Potluck

Facebook now allows you to get very creative with the page and profile main images. While there are creative ways to integrate profile pictures with the five image slots at the top of your page, you’ll need to start simple with an attractive main image.

Here are some examples of great main profile images on Facebook Pages.

Saddleback Church – Link

Concordia University Ann Arbor – Link

How Do I Make One?

If you have Adobe Photoshop, it’s simple.

• Create New > 180 px wide by 500 px height

• Add the images and content you want…

I only have Windows Paint!

That’s not a problem. Let’s put something together…

• Open Paint
• Open the Image you want to have as the background/base image (thanks to Warrenton Baptist for the image)

• Time to trim
• Use the “Selection” Tool and drag to a width of 180 pixels and whatever height you would like. I tend to go with 500 pixels for height.

• Make your selection, I’ve made an ugly red circle to show where you will see the size changing when you are making the selection.
• Once made, click “Crop”
• Now you’ll have this…

• Time to make it work.. (look better)
• Let’s make it have rounded corners
• Step 1: Click on the rounded corners image, set outline to white, set fill to “No Fill”

• Step 2: Move cursor to the upper left corner and drag down, you should have something that looks like this…

• Zoom in. Select the Paint Brush with a White color. Paint out the corners so all you have is a white border.

• Your image should now look like this.. (Ignore the gray line and the white dot…. sorry!)

• Grab the Rounded Rectangle box again. Make the outline WHITE and the fill color a GRAY. Click and drag from the left. Drag right outside of the canvas to get this effect.

• Add some text boxes

• Head over to Facebook, and click to change the picture, and you’ll  have something that looks like this…

Just like that, you have a custom look for your Facebook page. Not too bad for 5-10 minutes of work in Paint.

If you have Photoshop… well, just use that.