Make a Facebook Banner with Picasa

  1. Overview

    We'll use Google's FREE Picasa software to create a professional looking banner for our Facebook site.

  2. Download Picasa

    Visit

    http://picasa.google.com

    Download and install the Picasa software.

  3. Edit a photo with Picasa

    When Picasa first opens, it will ask to scan your documents for some photos.

    If the photo you would like to use wasn't found, then add it to Picasa from the File menu then "Add File to Picasa"

  4. Edit your photo

    Double click to begin editing the photo you'd like as the background.

  5. Crop the image for Facebook

    Facebook's cover photo must have the pixel dimensions:

    851 wide x 315 tall pixels

    Select the "crop" option.

  6. Add a custom aspect ratio

    We'll make it easy on ourselves and define the correct Facebook Cover Photo size as a Crop ratio.

    Then we can crop out a rectangle and have it exactly fit Facebook's requirements.

  7. Fill out your custom aspect ratio

    We've given ours the width and hight to match Facebook's requirements. And a name so we can easily remember it later.

  8. Crop the picture

    Click and drag on your picture to create the cropped area.

    The area in lighter colours will become our Facebook Cover Photo. The darkened areas will be cropped away.

  9. Add some text

    Finally we'll add some text and save the image.

  10. Export your image

    Use the "original image size" option when exporting for best results.

    Now you can upload your new cover photo to Facebook.

  11. The Finished Product

    Here's a sneak peak at what our example Facebook image looked like!