We all used to have them, and they used to be the standard. Vertical photos like the one of me on the right were what used to rule the Internet. However, with social networks switching over to square photos, it's important that you optimize your photo for social networking sites such as Twitter, ActiveRain, Facebook, etc.
Some sites like Facebook allow you to crop your profile image to pick a square section of it to show up as your avatar. (Your avatar is that square photo of you that you see on sites like Twitter.) But having to select a section sometimes cuts out other parts that you would have rather left in there. Sites like Twitter just take a square section of your photo and makes that your avatar, as does ActiveRain. This is not the sites fault. Having the same shape photo, in this case square, makes the site look much cleaner and does not break designs.
The fix to this, and way to ensure your photo looks great on all sites, is uploading a square photo to all of these sites instead of your outdated vertical photo. By doing this you don't leave the cropping up to the site. You control exactly how you want your photo to look.
With a site like Picnik this is very easy to do:
- Simply go to www.Picnik.com and upload your photo.
- Make sure it's the largest one you can find, as this will allow for better quality of your photo. Some sites scale it down, but others store it in various sizes for use around the site.
- Once uploaded go to "Crop"
- You'll see a drop down at the top that says "No Constraints" - Select this and choose "Square"
- Drag and scale that square to whatever portion of the photo you would like to use.
- Then on the top right click "Ok"
- Then click the tap up top that says "Create"
- If you'd like you can now add effects to the photo such as black and white.
- When done click "Save & Share" in the top right corner.
- This will allow you to enter a file name. Keep the dimensions and format the same. Change the quality to 10.
- When done click "Save Photo"
- Select somewhere on your computer to save it. Remember where it is so you can upload this on every site1
That's it! You now have a square photo that will optimize the appearance of your profile, posts, comments, etc on social networking sites.
