Feb
13
2012

Facebook Timeline Cover Photo Guide


Facebook Timeline Cover Photo
Since there were several questions about the Facebook Timeline Cover photo, I decided to dedicate an entire post for this new Facebook feature.

More information about the new Facebook Timeline, how to configure it properly and use it securely see can be found here: The Facebook Timeline Complete Guide
It’s very important you take the time and pass trough all of those privacy setting, to make sure you stay safe (well at least as safe as Facebook will allow you to be).

The Timeline Cover Photo is what makes that first impression people will get about you when they visit your Facebook profile. It can be part of you, of who you are or what you do, and there is no limit (for now at least) to where you can take this.

Facebook Timeline Creative Cover Photos

I wanted to show you few more examples of creative Timeline Cover images:

Facebook Timeline Cover Photo 5
Facebook Timeline Cover Photo 6
Facebook Timeline Cover Photo 7
Facebook Timeline Cover Photo 8
Facebook Timeline Cover Photo 9
Facebook Timeline Cover Photo 10

Not too bad, hmm?!

Facebook Timeline Covers Web Sites

There’s an abundance of new Facebook applications and web sites where you can get or install a new Cover Photo. Some are legit and offer original content, some less..  Here are few of these:

  • - Coverphotoz a nice selection of quality images to chose from. Some do contain a watermark. It also gives you an option to “create your own” cover. You will need to log into your Facebook account to install these cover images
  • - What a Timeline another pretty nice selection of quality images to choose from.
    The one that caught my attention here was this one:
    Facebook Cover Image - oh not you again
  • - MyProfileCover a very nice selection of original artwork designed primarily for timeline cover photos
  • - Creative Facebook Timeline Cover Photos a very wide selection of creative and interesting timeline cover images. You need to allow their application to install the cover image for you.
  • It all comes down to what you like. The downside is though you may encounter other people with the same cover as you have.

    Make your own Facebook Timeline Cover

    Of course, the nicest way to welcome your Facebook visitors though is to make your own cover photo. Tell the world that part of yourself you want to show.

    Here is what I did for my Timeline Cover:

    Nothing too complicated or over the top. You don’t have to be some design expert or Photoshop guru’ to make your own Facebook Timeline Cover Photo.

    Here are the exact sizes you need to know to make everything fit just right:

    Facebook Timeline Cover Picture layout

    *Ah, a small issue I encountered here, your Facebook profile picture when you add it, has to be at least 180 x 180 pixels  but on the Timeline it will be displayed at 130 x 130 260 x 260 px. It’s an important detail if you want to use some sort of combination between the profile and the cover image. Let’s hope they will keep the new sizes a couple more months this time!

    *Another thing to consider when making your own cover is the quality. Even if you get the right image height and width, Facebook will still resize your cover picture on uploading. That may lead to a loss of quality. It happened for me with a previous cover. Try to keep your cover images as simple as you can and don’t add to many fancy effects.

    *For a slightly better quality of the uploaded cover image, use this little trick, upload your new Timeline Cover Photo in one of your Facebook picture albums and select the high quality upload checkbox option provided by Facebook. After this upload, select the image as you new Timeline Cover!

    I have attached a small Photoshop template to get you started, the right way: Facebook Timeline Cover Template.zip The archive will also contain a correctly sized profile picture containing only an horizontal line, to make that continuous line effect you can see on the cover I made for my profile.

    Starting with March 30, 2012 all Facebook Brand Pages have been updated to the new Timeline format. This means a shinny new cover image will sit on top of every brand page bringing the possibility of a stronger marketing impact.

    There are though a series of restrictions, your Facebook Brand Page Cover image can not contain:

    • - Any price or purchase information like “Free booze
    • - Any contact information (phone, e-mail, website, social media links)
    • - Any calls to action like “Buy this now“, “Get it for free“, “Go shoot yourself
    • - Any references to Facebook features like “Like our Page” or any arrows or signs pointing to any similar feature, like your old custom frame (if you had one)
    • - Copyrighted material (of other people of course)

    But more about these changes and the update can be found here: Facebook Timeline Brand Pages Updated

    Now all you have to do is to unleash your creativity and make that awesome Facebook Timeline Cover Photo to welcome your visitors in style!

     

    If you want to know more about Facebook Brand Pages and how you can use Facebook in your marketing efforts, take a look at our new Facebook for Business free guide:

    Facebook Marketing Guide and Best Practices

     

22 Comments + Add Comment

  • doesnt look the same on a cell phone… images dont line up correctly :(

  • When it comes to creating your own cover photo, what recommendations do you have to create a clear and sharp looking cover photo that doesn’t get compressed and unsharpened by Facebook’s image compression system when uploading it?

    • Based on my own experiments,
      - try to use a more colorful (even shaped) background color or image,
      - fewer effects on texts.
      - add your Facebook cover image before, in an album using the high quality upload and set it later as cover photo!

      Unfortunately that’s all you can do, I did everything to get my pictures as small as possible but Facebook kept destroying the quality!

  • Thanks, it helped a lot. Please check out our timeline cover over our fanpage!

  • Very impressive .. but I think we cracked it with our timeline cover, let us know what you think

  • If you want to get the best quality sharp uncompressed image as your cover image, use the correct cover image size. It is 851×315, not 851×314!!

    Tryit if you don’t believe it. Facebooks will have to resize/compress the image if it is the wrong size.

    • Thanks for the tip, I tried that also actually, but it kinda did the same :)

  • How to control who can comment on my cover image ?

    • Actually You can’t. The cover images are public, and all of your friends may comment on it!

  • how can i enable timeline on my facebook?

    • If the 2 guides here for Enabling Timeline can’t help you, all you can do is wait a lil time, you will get it.

  • [...] happen when the image within Facebook as you upload them. If we look at the recommendation from Vectorash.ro, you can see that the profile picture have a different size. And the difference is quite [...]

    • Hey, well actually since this post, facebook have already made some changes, increasing the profile photo and making a mess out of everyone’s design :)) I will soon update with new measurements.

  • How to prevent public/non-friends to view comments made on cover photos

    • Hey, unfortunately cover photos are public, so if the person ca see your facebook profile (not blocked by you) they can comment..

      There is no other way I know, except block the person completely.

      • how to control public non friends to comments on cover photos ?please help
        many of my friends have cover photos privacy features activated on their cover photos .so,non friends can’t comment on their cover photos.even they also don’t know how to activate this privacy feature.
        please help how to activate this feature so non friends can’t comments on my cover photos.

        • You don not have control over that, the cover photos are public, and people can comment on it..
          There is no way to limit that.

  • Thank you soooo much!!!
    I was trying to create it on my own in CS5 and accidentally I found your Template…

    • you are welcome, glad it was helpful :)

  • hey, how i can delete my old cover photo?

    • it’s easy, go to you Photo Albums and you will find a folder named Cover Photos. It’s there where Facebook uploads all of your Cover Photos. Just hover over the pictures and you will see a delete option ;)

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