Pixelmator tutorial: Create a custom Facebook cover image

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Ever since Facebook created the Timeline, users have been looking for creative ways to combine their profile picture with the cover picture. Rather than just having a landscape image as your cover picture, why not be more creative? You can make something that looks as though the profile picture was always meant to be part of a bigger image.

In the example shown here, it looks as though the model is looking at three photos – the two she’s holding, and the profile picture. Although she’s only holding white pieces of paper, other images are combined to create this effect. You need an accurate template to get the best results, and one is provided. Use Pixelmator to layer images and reduce opacity to make sure everything matches the provided template. When you’re done, you simply export and upload to Facebook to check the result. We think you’ll be pleased with the results – it’ll stand out from the crowd, that’s for sure. Download the images for this tutorial HERE.

Step 1: Open template

Open Pixelmator and drag ‘FacebookTemplate. psd’ to the app icon in your Dock to open it. Go to View>Show Layers to see the Layers palette.

Step 2: Reduce opacity

Drag ‘CoverBackground.tiff’ to Pixelmator. Go to the Layers palette and with CoverBackground selected, drag the Opacity slider down to 65%.

Step 3: Scaling the image

With CoverBackground selected, hit Cmd+F to make the image transformable. Resize it to fit the grey box by dragging the corners. Click OK.

Step 4: Setting profile

Drag ‘Profile.jpg’ in, and follow the same process to scale it down. Place it over the black box. This image is used for reference, to see the total effect.

Step 5: Insert images

With CoverBackground selected in the Layers palette, drag in images Insert1.tif and Insert2.tif. Hit Cmd+F and scale these to almost match the white squares.

Step 6: Create frames

For each insert image, hit Cmd+F, right-click on them and choose Distort. Then drag each corner so that it appears to be framed by white paper.

Step 7: Merging layers

Uncheck the profile image and turn the Opacity of CoverBackground to 100. Shift-click all the images and right-click and choose Merge Layers.

Step 8: Selecting shape

With the merged layer selected, turn its opacity to 65%, and hit M to bring up the Marquee tool. Use this to draw and outline around the grey rectangle.

Step 9: Final export

Turn the opacity up, go to Edit>Select, Edit>Copy, hit Cmd+N and Edit>Paste. Save the image as your cover picture. Upload your profile pic as well.

Don’t forget, you can get the assets to follow along with this tutorial HERE

Click on the image below to zoom in and view the annotations