Awesome-ifying Your Facebook Profile

Facebook changed layouts recently, adding a row of 5 images (the 5 images you were most recently tagged in) at the top of the profile page. Using Photoshop (or G.I.M.P. or MSPaint if you'd rather), you can make mini-images to fill this space and show off your creativity.

Note: Check this out for the awesome inspiration behind this and more ideas

Step 1: Making Mini-Images

If using the template provided here (as a PSD and a PNG), you can skip ahead to #3. Note that depending on the amount of information in your profile above the 5 images, you may need to make some adjustments if you are including your main profile image in your awesome design as this template is based on having three lines of text at the top (having more or less text at the top of your profile can shift the orientation of the line of 5 mini-images slightly).

1. Take a screenshot of your profile. I'm a huge fan of Snagit (which is available for both Mac and PC), which is awesome for taking screenshots. Alternately, if you're using a Mac, you can use Grab or if you're using a PC, you can use the Print Screen key on your keyboard
2. Open your screenshot in Photoshop (or other photo editing program)
3. Select and delete the areas where the 5 tagged images are (and your main profile image, if you'll be replacing it also)
4. Create a new layer and place it behind the existing one
5. Select an image (or images) you'd like to use and paste them onto this new layer
6. Resize the image and make adjustments as needed so that it shows through panes in the way that you'd like
7. Select the areas for each of the mini-images, and cut and paste each into a new document, and save
8. If you're creating a main profile image to go along with the mini-images, select, cut and paste, and save the same way to create that image

Comments

[AntzyP]

Well I'm commenting again but I had to share this image. This is "not exactly" what this instructable shares but it has spun off from this idea only... Its an album composed of a single image. Hope u guys like it...

[shesparticular]

Seriously awesome work! I may have to give that a try :)

[AntzyP]

Thanks :D

[ymagination]

Well, as others said, is really nice, once ou get it, but, just refresh the page, and all gets shuffled...
Press [F5] several times, and you will see all your effort and illussion go thru the window... :-S pitty... it was nice...

[shesparticular]

I'm really not sure why some folks are having this issue. I've had mine up for almost a year and have never had the images show up in a different order.

[hhermann schou]

Every time I refresh the page the images are being shuffled randomly. Is there a fix to this?

[zonewarrior]

The same happens to mine - is there a fix ??

[shesparticular]

I haven't had this issue, and I'm not sure if anyone else has or not (no one has mentioned it). Have you tagged yourself in each image in the reverse order that they should show up?

[MotaKun]

i dont understand the 5 and 6 steps, how i tag the fotos, Wat name i tag it? my fotos dont appear.. im sad, i cant do that.. little help please..

sorry my English and ignorance...

[shesparticular]

You should tag yourself in the photos the same way you would for any other image on Facebook. I'm not sure what you mean about the photos not showing up though - have you uploaded them to Facebook?

Hopefully tagging them with your name will help some - please let me know if you need more help with it.

[Tomcat94]

On a Mac, you don't need a program to take a picture of your screen.

Use this keyboard shortcut:
"Command (the key with the apple on it)" + "Shift" + "4"

Then you can click and drag across the part you want to capture.

Very good instructable-- I'm going to do something similar for Valentine's day. It'll be five images with one word on each one that says: "HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY (my girlfriend's first name) (my girlfriend's last name)" Either that, or I'm going to put "I LOVE YOU" instead of happy valentine's day.

[helifino]

on winblows, you can hit the 'print screen' key to copy your current view to the clipboard...

[shesparticular]

Yep, as noted, "Print Screen" is an option for taking a screen shot on a PC.

[shesparticular]

I prefer Snagit to Command+Shift+4 only because it automatically scrolls through whole pages in Firefox when taking screenshots, which is very cool. Also, Command+Shift+4 saves as .tiff, which I'm not crazy about, but it certainly does work just as well as any program would.

Very cute idea though! I'm sure she'll love it!

[laxap]

Your Instructable + Gimp + cartoon effect + drop shadow = this:

[ZDress]

I love the drop shadow effect. I'll have to try it out soon.

[shesparticular]

Very very cool!

[thing 2]

There is a website called fbanners.com that makes this easy!

[shesparticular]

Personally I enjoyed doing it on my own, but if people want to use websites or apps, that's cool too! Thanks for your comment!

[thing 2]

I liked the pic of the person who used the 5 small ones for his eye and for head and the side for the side of his face!

[shesparticular]

There really have been some great ones - it's awesome to get to see what folks come up with!

[thing 2]

Thanks for this sweet 'ible!

[Tomcat94]

I've already commented on this instructable enough times, but I had to show what I did.

[shesparticular]

So cute!

[Tomcat94]

Perhaps I should blur out my name as well... I completely forgot to do that... :/

[shesparticular]

You should be able to delete your comment (below the comment it should have "Reply" and below that "flag" and "delete") and then you can repost it (since it's super cute and sweet!). Also, just another reason why Snagit is awesome, it has built-in functions for blurring, cropping, and adding annotations :)

[o_grande_rei]

My pictures are tagged in the correct order, but every time i visit the page, the order changes. the order is different every time. Anyone else encounter this?

[shesparticular]

I'm afraid I haven't had that issue so I don't have any surefire fix. I'd suggest untagging and retagging the photos to see if that helps.

[sputrea]

Thanks a bunch! I hate the new profile--I even hate having a profile picture. My friend was getting on me for appearing blank, so this solved that problem.

I really love the idea!

[seanathon]

Can someone try to make an mspaint template? I can't download photoshop.

[emmarocket]

Hey! you could try "gimp" if you can't get photoshop - here is the link :)
http://www.gimp.org/

[seanathon]

Thanks so much for all your help! after dividing and splicing, I've finally done it!

[shesparticular]

Yep, G.I.M.P. is a nice free alternative to Photoshop.

[shesparticular]

There is a free trial of Photoshop available from Adobe and the template provided here will also work with G.I.M.P. (which is also free to download). If I'm able to locate MSPaint, I'll make a template for it and post that as well.

In case it'll help in the meantime, the mini-images should be 97x68 pixels.

[seanathon]

Thank you so much!!! Giving you five stars!

[shesparticular]

Thanks - I hope that all helped! Please do post it when you're done. I added the template (as a PNG with black squares) to step 2 also in case that helps.

[shesparticular]

I've added a PNG (which can be opened in MSPaint). I don't have the most awesome Paint skills, so I'm not sure what-all might be most helpful in terms of using it as a template. It is sized correctly, and I've made the mini-image areas black so that they can be used to make sure the 5 images are the right size. Hopefully that'll help some, but please do let me know if something else would be better.

[seanathon]

I'd love to post it, but unfortunately, am younger than the average user on the site and I do like to keep my work private. I will try though, I promise! :D

[thisisvlad]

Every time that someone tags a photo of you, you need to go t your profile and x out those new images? so, possibly you will have to do this every day multiple times? wow, that sounds fun.

[shesparticular]

Yes, if you get tagged daily, that could be kind of bothersome, but it's your call as to if you want to do this or not.