ClearRiver Advertising and Marketing

Good suggestions Keith.  Very helpful

Thanks for the comment Charles. Glad to hear you thought it was helpful.

I just stumbled upon this post and this is really helpful.  I had one question though, you mention that the thumbnail is 50X50px but then say there is just a 15px buffer on the sides, which would make the thumbnail area 170X170.  Which is correct?  Or am I just not understanding that right?  I’m not a designer, just trying to give better instructions to the person who does mine.

Hi Rebecca, I’m so glad that you liked this post, and sorry for the misunderstanding. Let me try and clarify this a little more!

When I talked about using the 170x170px dimensions it was simply a way to help you visualize the area of your image that Facebook will use. The designer never actually makes a thumbnail. In the end Facebook takes that 200x600px profile picture and crops/reduces it to 50x50px. However, I figured out that when Facbook crops and reduces profile images it doesn’t use the full 200px width. Instead, it will move in slightly on the left and right sides (about 17px on both sides) and then it will reduce the image to 50x50px. So that’s where I got the 17px number. All that to say the portion of the tutorial that deals with all of this was just a way to help a designer preview how Facebook will crop the image to the end dimensions of 50x50px.

The thing that your designer should take away from this is to be aware about placing important elements of the design too close to the edges or they may get cut off in the thumbnail. Does that make sense? Sorry it was such a lengthy response. Let me know if it’s still unclear!

Wasted 2 hours designing a more spacious profile picture for my company page and when I uploaded the file 1) it wouldn’t let me use the full height of the graphic 200X600 as my profile picture.  Only about 320 pixels, but then 2) it rotated it landscape so the picture is on it’s side.  I can’t even rotate it back to normal. Totally useless.

Hi D,

I’m so sorry you didn’t have luck getting this tutorial to work for you. Could you provide a link to the Facebook page you are working on? Everything that I talked about in this post should work so I wonder if there is something else about your page or your image that is causing a hang up. I would love to make sure this works for you so please feel free to post more questions or send me the link so I can take a look at what’s going on.

Thanks!

Keith

Sorry Keith,
I apparently wrote too soon.  I’ve been noticing some strange behaviors while trying to upload photos to Facebook, at least for my particular page.  Your tutorial had nothing to do with it as your directions are spot on, at least, if Facebook would cooperate.  I initially tried using a PNG, but changed to GIF and all of a sudden it decided to like it.  I’m not sure if it was just Facebook’s programming that was having issues (whether it was browser/OS - I’m using Firefox 3.6.3 on Mac OS Leopard) or the file type.  Either way it was definitely showing some odd behaviors but now seems to work just fine.  Glad to be able to design and brand more real estate the way I want it!

That’s great! I’m so happy that everything worked out for you and that this tutorial was helpful!

Thanks for yr tutorial.  BUT I’M HAVING PROBLEMS.

I have been trying for 3 days to upload a photo into my profile album.  No success.  I’ve tried uploading a 170x540 jpg and gif.  No luck.  I even tried uploading a jpg photo I use on other websites.  I does not upload.

Uploading photos into status comments works just fine.

Is Facebook having problems now with its Profile Photos?  If not, what else might be causing the problem?  HELP!  especially since I’ve designed a nice verticle photo for the Fan Page, which crops properly for thumbnail, as you explain.

Thanks.

Hi Tom,

I just tried a test upload on a page that I manage and didn’t have any problems, but I know Facebook really seems to be having problems with it’s ability to upload profile pictures lately…@D the one who commented above you was having similar issues but was able to resolve it.

Can you tell me more about what happens? Are there any error messages, does Facebook just hang or freeze up?

How are you saving your GIFs/JPGs? Do you use “Save for web” in photoshop or some other means? I usually try to make sure I’ve stripped all the meta data and color profiles because sometimes that can cause errors.

Thanks for yr prompt response.

I’m working with a very young graphics art student, who is using Serif DrawPlus X4.  He exports the image as either jpg or gif.

We have already created our website banner and uploaded it with no problem to the website, using Serif WebPlus X4:  http://www.bluesasianetwork.com

When I try to upload the photo via clicking the photo box, I choose the picture—and then it looks like it is uploading, but it runs and runs and runs, with nothing getting onto the site.  When I first created the page and tried to upload the graphic, I got an error message, saying cannot handle this file, or something like that.

I have managed to upload the images via email, but I cannot get them into my Profile Pictures album.

You can see what I’m doing by searching for Blues Asia Network on Facebook.

What is particularly surprising is the fact that the page does not upload even small jpg photos that I’ve posted in other locations on the web with no problem.

Hi Tom,

Well, I did a little test for you and downloaded the banner image from your site. I then opened it in Photoshop and saved for web and uploaded the JPG to Facebook and it worked fine.

My guess is Serif WebPlus X4 is not exporting clean JPGs to Facebook. Try saving your JPGs/GIFs through another program and see if you have better results.

Thanks!  Looks like you identified the problem.  I’ll have my young designer redo the graphic in Photoshop.  That might take a day or two as he will have to slip the assignment between in classes and homework.  Will report the results back here.

OK, we made a copy of the vertical Blues Asia Network logo in Photoshop and saved for web.  It does not upload either.

Let me clarify:  I am trying to upload it as the profile picture of my Blues Asia Network business page.  The business page won’t even accept the profile photo from my RB main page.

As a test, I tried uploading the graphic as the profile photo on my regular FB account, under the name of tomcolvin.  The photo uploads there with no problem at all.

I read somewhere a few weeks ago that FB would be changing the way its business pages work.  FB apparently intends to monetize the business page [formerly Fan Page], restricting logo graphics only to pages with a large number of “fans,” or who pay a big fee.  MAYBE THAT’S THE PROBLEM.

Hi Keith,

I was just going through this and trying to implement it, but I keep failing at my biggest problem…my logo (Deutsche Presseakademie) has a nice little square which I wanted to make my thumbnail. But whenever I change the thumbnail and drag it along the picture, it changes from the fully focused version (which is not blurry at all when Facebook first crops it) to a totally blurred icon..it is driving me insane.

Any suggestions?

@Tom Clovin, When I tested the image from your site on my test FB page (which has no fans and is not published) I did upload it to the profile picture, so I’m not convinced it is FB putting any restrictions on your page. If you trust me, maybe you can give me access to the page and I can try and troubleshoot it for you? Send me a message via email at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and maybe we can coordinate something.

@Rita Dantas can you tell me what the URL of your page is so I can see the blurred thumbnail? I’ve never heard of this problem so I’m curious to actually see the problem first hand if possible.

Thanks!

I can, yes, of course: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Berlin/Deutsche-Presseakademie/130017653702459?ref=ts&ajaxpipe=1&__a=9

I wanted to wait until solving the problem, but then finally we twittered the address and have now a couple of fans…it is really weird, I have always moved thumbnails around without ever experiencing this: the very moment I click on it to move it, it gets blurry, which it still isn’t in the facebook cropped version.

But hey, at least I have an original problem…

Oops, solved with a new picture, thanks for your help though!

Hi Rita,

Gute Arbeit!

I’m glad you figured it out. Did you change anything in the new photo you uploaded? I’m curious about what made it work - any ideas?

Tschüss.

This one was made for this spot by our graphics team, but I still have no clue why that happened with the other one, it was jus something I had never experienced before…

Hi Tom,

Got it fixed for you!

The strange thing was when I was logged in as you I could not get it to work either. So I began to wonder if the problem was your account. I then made myself an admin for your page, logged out as you and logged back in as myself and presto I was able to upload the image. I have NO idea why you cannot upload an image to your own page ... Maybe some kind of privacy setting or something??? Who knows but you might want to check it out.

Take care,

Keith

Thanks, Keith, for your perserverance.  Most people would have given up on it long ago.

One valuable lesson:  FB does have a mechanism in place to block intrusions into one’s account from people in different locations.  Never heard anything about that.

On the other hand, FB “help” is patnetic.  Takes heroes like Keith to get things running.

Thanks for the great post Keith, I’ve got a much much better profile pic now! I’m going to use it to highlight current promotions too.

Hi Keith,

I’m having the same problem as well, and have already sent you a message via FB, in hopes that I can give you Admin right to one of my pages.

Having read your last reply to Tom, I think it’s because you have pages with a lot of followers. Which would mirror what Tom said about pages with larger followings.

If that is the case, then it will be frustrating for me, as I’m creating pages for several new clients, and I can’t get it to work on any. Nor can I get the same size image to upload to my personal profile.

I’d love to contact Facebook about this, but they seem to have issues with getting back to people. Very frustrating.

Thanks for your post, just wish it worked for me. :}

Kath

I just found this in Facebook’s Help Center: http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=830

Read: How do I add or change a profile picture?

I wonder if only a select few can still actually add a picture that is more than three times as tall as it is wide.

Hope I’m not being a pest, but I found this: http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Roadmap_Photos

on the Facebook Developers page. Funny, because I can’t get that dimension to work either. I even tried 99 x 476, and no go. :{

I’ll stop posting now, and wait for your answer. :}

I’m all set, I figured it out!

Maximum image size is no longer 200x600.

Thank you for your post!

Kathy, can you now upload to all yr clients’ accounts?  I found the FB “help” page to be the most useless help I’ve ever encountered.  They won’t do anything apparently unless you send a series of screenshots—which seems pointless when all one sees is a blank screen.

BTW, I tried all kinds of photo sizes, even the thumbnail from my personal FB page—none of them would upload.  And I still have not figured out why.  Thank goodness Keith found a work-around.

Hi Tom,

Yes, I can now upload to all my client pages. Which I’ll be doing on Monday. Excited!

I wrote about my experience today on my blog. It’s been a rough few weeks trying to figure all this out. :\

Kath

Hi Kathy,

Well, it looks like you made some great discoveries! Thanks for finding Facebook’s new guidelines: “We’re changing the size of the largest profile picture to 180 pixels wide by 540 pixels high (down from 200 pixels by 600 pixels).” Even though this seems to be true I find it strange that I can still upload images 200x600px, even on new pages that I have created in just the last couple days…so strange. However, given your experience and Facebook’s new guidelines I’ll probably be making all my future profile images keeping the 180x540 dimensions in mind and also that you cannot upload a photo if it is more than three times as tall as it is wide.

I’ll try to make some updates to this post this week so it’s up to date with this new information :-)

Thanks again for posting your findings!

-Keith

Hi Keith,

Thanks, I actually posted a How-to on my blog - http://bit.ly/9dAoyk - and tracked one of the posts back to you.

Thanks again for this post, it helped point me in the right direction.

I look forward to collaborating with you more in the future. Great post!

Kathy

Awesome write up. Just saw it linked from SEOmoz.

This is really cool! But when I insert a picture into a new layer-it becomes very blurry. I tried resizing the image to 200wide and 100high (or something close)and then pasted it into the new layer, but still blurry. How do you make the inserted photo clear like the original?

Hi “Facebook Developer” can you clarify your question a little more for me? Are you talking about adding an image to a Photoshop layer? What are the pixel dimensions of the image you are cutting and pasting into the new layer? Instead of cutting and pasting images to new layers I usually just open the image I want in PS and then drag and drop the image into my working file which then automatically creates a new layer.

Thanks,

Keith

Hi Keith I’ve tried it and it really worked. So there is definitely nothing wrong in this article. people must try out to do everything in accordance to your guidance and everything will be fine as with me.
I have something to ask you. Can you please write an article about templates and how to upload those templates in facebook. I’d really like my profile and fan page to be as customizable as it’s possible.
Regards,
Suren

Hey Keith!

Thanks for the mention in your Update! :D

Kath

No problem Kathy, thanks for making the post better!

THANK YOU!!! I’ve just made my page look a thousand times more awesome! You’re a gem!

Thank you…I am currently building my Business page on Facebook, this info. helped me to incorporate several photos instantly giving customers a better idea of my products…great info. Thanks

This article is really awesome. The thumbnails were really giving me some massive headache for so long. And now I’m so relieved that I can do whatever I want with it, and not only sit and watch what Facebook does with my images.

Thanks!

Hey everyone. First of all, really good guide. I have a problem with a profile picture…it’s blurry. I made this logo and tried to upload it as a profile picture with all kinds of different dimensions and formats but it will still be blurry. Here’s a comparison of the original and the one displayed on facebook:
http://www4.pic-upload.de/10.08.10/quc6eeuylb3c.jpg

Anyone have an idea how to fix this?
Pixel art being blurry kind of defeats the purpose.

Thanks! -LA

Hi Luke,

I’ve seen Facebook severely compress images and therefor cause some pixilation but never like this. You’re right that’s a lot of blurring - very strange. My experience has been that sometimes if an image is not an even amount of pixels strange things can happen. So for instance if your image was 201 x 199 instead of 200 x 200 it could through things off. Can you confirm that your image is indeed exactly 200 pixels wide by an even number deep. Also, what file type are you using? For some reason I usually have the best luck with JPEGs stripped of all meta data. Let me know what you come up with!

-Keith

Hi Luke,

My curiosity got the best of me and I’ve tried uploading it to my test Facebook page - I can’t for the life of me reproduce your problem. I’ve tried a few variations in size and it always looks pretty good. Let me know your status when you get a chance. I know you mentioned you tried a lot of dimensions and formats too but I’d still be curious to know if my suggestion of making sure the pixel dimensions even numbers has any positive effects.

-Keith

Hi Keith,

I am trying to upload a a profile picture, at first I tried with 200*600 dimension, as it didnt work, i resized it to 140*540 but still it isn’t working…. I dont know where the problem is but can you please help me? I read the previous comments but its not helping me…. I uploaded much more larger picture on my facebook with no problem before…. But now I cant…. even I tried smaller than 140*540, still its not working…. Looking forward for your suggestion…

Did you get any kind of error or did it just hang there - tell me what happened.

Can you also confirm that you tried multiple formats such as JPG, PNG or GIF.

Just for kicks you might want to try 180 x 540px for your dimensions instead of 140 x 540px.

-Keith

Was just about to reply with those dimensions, but you beat me to it.  ;)

Yes, making the image 180 x 540px will work in the formats you listed. It’s part of Facebooks sizing restraints.

(Hope you don’t mind me piping in Keith) :}

Hi Keith,
Any advice for editing the thumbnail of my profile pic but in a Fan Page. I didn’t create a Group, I created a Fan Page and when I hover my cursor over the top right corner of the profile pic there’s no option to edit like there is in my personal profile.

Thanks!
Olga

Hello Keith,

I only get this message ‘Your picture is too tall or too wide. Try to pick something closer to a square.’ And I tried with JPG and GIF format. I used microsoft office picture manager to resize the photo… But it gets 140*540 instead…. What should I do?

@Olga I’m pretty sure that Facebook Groups have the same profile picture functionality as a Fan page. Do you have JavaScript enabled for your browser? I really can’t think of any other reason why it wouldn’t work - very strange.

@Isnad You’re getting that error message because you are making you image too narrow.  @Kathy B is right! Try 180 by 540px and that should work because 140 by 540 is more than three times as tall as it is wide. Does that make sense?

-Keith

Thanks again Keith.

@Isnad - SnagIt is a very inexpensive Screen Capturing software, that’s much better for resizing images than MS Picture Manager.

You can read about it here: http://www.techsmith.com/screen-capture.asp

Hope this helps.

thanks for the comments. turns out they were having issues because the next day my image loaded just fine.  180x540.
thanks!

@Olga, glad to hear you got it figured out!

I’m having problems with my Fan Page image. I’m not a professonal designer but i wanted to create something nice for the company i’m working for. I created it in Photoshop , tried all sized mentioned above and still get this ugly blurry image. (see link below) Please advise as i dont know what i did wrong. On the file , my resolution is 300 and the last updated image that’s currently on facebook is 180x540 , really appretiate a word of advice. Thanks!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/edit/?id=120667634645441#!/pages/Woodbridge-NJ/JoeSal-Construction/120667634645441

Keith, Super tutorial! Thanks for sharing your knowledge. I am working on a FB image right now.

Keith,  I was trying to assist a FB friend regarding her profile pics.  She wants the ability to move a pic from the profile album to another album.  As I viewed this, there is no way that I can see to do this.  Is there a process that exists to do this?
Thanks,
-Gael-

Hi Keith,

I’m just finding this because I’ve been googling this issue. I’m having a huge issue with blurry event photos and tab images. Can you help? Here is just an example of what I’m talking about: http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=158742244137866&ref=mf

I’ve worked with many designers to figure this out and everyone seems baffled. This image is the 170x170 that you suggested in your tutorial.

Also, if you click, “about us” you’ll see that the banner is blurry too! Help! I’m trying to provide quality work but it seems impossible with this platform.

This are illustrator images.

Hi there,
I am in desperate need of help.. i’m trying to paste my company logo on my fan page however every time i try it gets cut in half. i even tried cutting down the three words (which was on a single line) into three separate lines and it STILL cuts it off.. im aware that the thumbnail cuts down to 50x50 but i have minimized my words so much that its unreadable… but when i look at other fan pages their letting looks much bigger and it all fits on their display pic… please please help

Thanks for this, I updated my Biz page http://on.fb.me/9C31GT
and My personal page
http://www.facebook.com/ctchrisadams
Great post.

@Brit can you send a link to the Facebook page you are working on so I can see the problem?

@Christopher Adams - glad you liked the post!

Keith - Very helpful information and I’ll pass along optimized profile pictures to my social network clients.

Monthly promotions will never be the same again :)

-Best Regards-

Hi Keith,

I removed the logo from the group… but is there a way that i can send you a picture of the logo so you can see from yourself that way?

Thanks again! :)

Keith, For those that don’t have Photoshop, I put together a PowerPoint template with the proper sizing for a poor man’s image editor. I used your excellent tutorial. Thanks again. Anyone interested can contact me from the website.

Hi Keith

I’ve tried and failed several times, no matter what I do the logo on my companys fanpage is blurry. I’ve tried to make it big, and I’ve tried to make it small, and I’ve also tried both gif and jpeg… What do I do wrong? http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Presentations-Data-as/150228331688679

Really interesting. I’ve often fell foul of the way the Facebook likes to chop off my carefully constructed profile pictures! I’ll give this a go!
Cheers,

In the new FB profile photostream there are 5 pictures. Do you know the exact pixel size or proportion of hight and width of the individual picture shown? And what is the width in pixels of the bar in-between the photos?
I would like to create my own photostream by cutting and cropping a photo rather than using a template.
Your help is much appreciated.

thanks for the info. very useful!

p.s. does the 15px margin rule still apply after the new dimensions?

@fedor Yes Facebook still crops in on the edges of thumbnail. The 15px margin was what you should use on your full size image template in your image editor.

@LUKAS I’m not sure I am following what you are asking, but I wonder if this link would help: http://blog.jess3.com/2010/12/how-to-customize-facebook-profile.html

I was so uncomfortable with how my profile photo looked on the news feed page and my friends’ wall . Then, I stumbled on your post. My problem solved. Thanks so much. You are a great help !

I just wanted to say thanks for posting this ... I did a search for the image dimensions for the FB profile because FB isn’t exactly open with this information! After finding out the 1:3 rule and the 180x540 limits, I was able to finally get a client’s image on their company page. Thanks again!

Nice guide, this helped our facebook page tremendously.

Great article, putting together my company’s Facebook page right now and looking forward to displaying great images!

Anybody that wants to check it out:

Baobab Furniture

Thank you, this really helped! Just added a new picture to my FB page and it looks much more professional.

Keith,
Same problem as Tom. I’ve tried adjusting the size of our JPEG logo to 160x66 and I still get “There was an error updating your profile picture. Please try again.”
Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance.

Hi Chris,

If you’re having the same issue as Tom I would try to edit your page with a different account by making that account a page admin. Then log-in under that account, go to the edit section of your page and try to upload the image. For some reason this worked in Tom’s case and I still don’t know why ...

Hi Chris & Keith,

Chris, you either need to make your logo 66 pixels wide by 198 high or 53 pixels wide by 160 high.

From Facebook:
“If you are having trouble adding or changing your profile picture, please note that you cannot upload a photo if it is more than three times as tall as it is wide.”

This should work!

Kath

Chris, Kathy is right about this if your image is 160px tall by 66px wide. I just assumed the reverse, that your image was 160px wide by 66px tall.

Let us know how it all works out for you.

Thanks!

Keith

Keith,
Your assumption is right. Like most company logos, ours is horizontal. I tried taking it way down in size and still get the same message.

You suggested going in under another account. Since I’m the current admin from my personal page, would I set up another personal page? Sorry if I’m making this more difficult than it has to be but I’m clueless when it comes to this stuff.

Thanks!

Hi Chris,

No don’t set up another page. Are there any people that currently “like” your page that you would trust to make as a admin that could then try and upload your image? That’s what worked for Tom.

But before you do that let’s take a step back. What did you use to make this image? Like I’ve mentioned elsewhere in this comment thread sometimes graphic editing programs don’t always strip out, or worse, add data that Facebook doesn’t like. Have you tried different formats such a .gif or .png? If you try a .jpeg again I find that Photoshop’s save for web works the best.

-Keith

Yes! Changing the extension to a .bmp did the trick.

Thank you for all of your help!

Hi there,

I’m having trouble uploading our organization’s logo. I do recognize that it is a rectangle shape logo (therefore making it difficult when following FB’s standards) however i tried saving it as the dimensions you posted but it still doesn’t work?

I have noticed that on budweiser’s fanpage they have a different graphic altogether when you search for their page or when they post a comment. Do you know how they are doing this?

help!  my brain doesn’t get ANY of this…i don’t mean to be insulting, but it’s all a foreign language to me!  i was hoping, though, that i might find an answer to my profile pic uploading issue?  as of yesterday, i encountered zero probs changing one of my many pics (over 100) in or out of the “profile” position…whether the pic was 1) taken from my computer’s desktop, 2) taken from the profile pic album, or 3) taken from another fb album.  now, if i “make profile pic” from the profile pic album, nothing happens (the blue background/white head remains).  or if i choose something new, or upload something new, and then click on “done cropping,” i get an error msg: “there was an error saving your profile picture.  please try again.”
i have shut down my computer (mac powerbook g4), and i have refreshed.  i stayed up all night.  i have cried.  i need help.  can you help?
o, please.

@eric I’ve been looking into this and to be honest I have no idea how Budweiser is pulling that off. If you ever find out please let me know!

@heidi I wish I could help, but this sounds like more of an error with FB. Are you still having trouble?

Which budweiser page are you talking about? The one at facebook.com/budweiser has the same image for profile and thumbnail ...

keith,
i think you’re amazing!  just as suddenly as the problem began…POOF, i had a new profile pic!  i just kept trying, over & over & over.  i was certain YOU had fixed it, so you were my hero the rest of the day/night.  now i know otherwise! :D but i still think that if you were capable, you would’ve solved the prob lickety-split!
thanks for everything(?)!!!!!!!!!  i now know where to turn with future issues.  take care!
heidi

@Nikole and @eric I just rechecked the Budweiser fanpage and it appears that the main profile image as well as the smaller cropped avatar version are now one and the same.

I wonder if what @eric and I saw was just a case of seeing a cached image. Strange ... Oh well :)

@Keith ... I think there are also several fan groups and such with the brand that aren’t the official brand ... maybe one of them posted on the official page lol.

I’m still playing with the dimensions on our logo, but the problem I am having is the “blurry” and “fuzzy” issue.  The logo looks perfect in photoshop when I save it, as either jpg or png.  I have tried savingit as both 200x200 and 180x180.

But look at how it displays on facebook?  The colors are all, splotchy - especially the red.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Riot/136359615280

Any thoughts?

I think what you are seeing is the degradation that results from Facebook compressing your image. I’ve learned that the more colors and complex your graphic (such as using gradients, drop shadows, etc) the more you will see the effects of Facebook’s compression. Interestingly, actual photos placed in your graphics tend not to show as much degradation.

So I guess in the end you can either live with the results or try making your graphics less complex. You can simulate the results Facebook will give you by going to save for web in Photoshop setting the file type to JPEG and taking the quality down to about 50. You want to watch the KB size and get it near 20kb – that’s about the max Facebook allows for a profile image.

Hope that helps! I know there are a lot of folks that seem to have this problem.

Hi Keith,

I seem to be having the same problems as Rita regarding the blurry thumbnails when I click to move. I attempted to upload variations of the image - JPEG, GIF, PNG however all are yielding the same thumbnail results! I even attempted to resize the photo at various different pixels, but nothing seems to be working for me. This is very strange ...

Thank you for taking time to read this and thanks for your help.

I tried making a profile image for my website with 200px by 600px and there is a quality drop when i try to post on FB. Any Idea why?

IF YOU ARE HAVING TROUBLE WITH BAD IMAGE QUALITY OR BLURRINESS THIS IS WHY:

Many of the commenters lately seem to be having this problem. Facebook is compressing your image. I’ve learned that the more colors and complex your graphic (such as using gradients, drop shadows, etc) the more you will see the effects of Facebook’s compression. Interestingly, actual photos placed in your graphics tend not to show as much degradation.

You can simulate the results Facebook will give you by going to save for web in Photoshop setting the file type to JPEG and taking the quality down to about 50. You want to watch the KB size and get it near 20kb – that’s about the maximum size that Facebook allows for a profile image and by doing this in Photoshop you will see the same level of compression take place that Facebook would inflict on your image. I hope that makes sense to everyone.

Thanks,

Keith

That worked out pretty well. Have no idea why FB is dropping the quality when they now allow normal photo albums to have hi-res.

Thanks a lot for the tip anyway..

Haneez

Thanks for the tutorial.  Your suggestion about “saving for web and devices” was spot on!  I was having troubles uploading until I tried that suggestion.  The best part is that I have had those troubles with other websites and now I get to use your suggestion to solve a couple other problems!  Thanks!

This is really Nice and amazing But When i insert a pictures into a layer it become a very dull.i tried to resizing image..How do you make the inserted photo clear ?

i am having a serious problem of not having my profile picture visible to me and too others as well. So dear sir if u can give me some instructions regarding this matter then i would always be obliged to u. With regards Adnan.

Well-written and informative, even for a veteran like me. Thanks!

I have found out that FB does not like the color red. I have tried all the suggestions in this blog and my profile logo looked really bad using a web safe red. As soon as I switched the colors from red to white the logo looked 100% better.

VERY helpful page, thank you so much for the information. I’d been working on a larger profile picture for my Facebook page but simply could *not* get anything to work; reading the dimensional requirements here clarified the issues in minutes!

Hi Keith, I loved your tutorial, it was very helpful.  One question, everytime I upload a profile picture (i’m using ( 200 * 550 ), the quality looks terrible, I’m using illustrator to design them .

Thanx a lot .. hope you answer soon…

@Pami,

Please see comment: #94 - I think this will answer your question.

Resizing question

Very basically, I’m loading a 180x301 pixel GIF logo, and simply don’t have a clue as to how to get it to resize within a square area so that the WHOLE logo shows up on the thumbnail profile picture.  I don’t see a “resize” option in FB—do I have to do that in Photoshop (free version)?  If so, do you know how?  I’ll go back and reread your original post, but I think it just explains how to crop a square area (and the “crop” option doesn’t even come up for this graphic).

My page is “Jeffrey Hotchkiss, Reiki Master Teacher”.

Thanks for any light you can shed on this challenge.

Thanks Keith, really useful info :)

Thanks a lot - your post is the most descriptive on the net.  I have just used your tips for setting up my Company’s corporate page.

Brilliant!  Thanks so much for sharing this great information!

Is there a difference between page pictures and profile pictures? I am trying every suggestion and sticking to the 180×540 and even tried the 200×600 and I get an error message. The message isn’t any help either. It just says “There was an error uploading your profile the picture. Please try again.”

RE: Thanks for the info - good to know.

Thanks for the helpful article. I was wondering, do you have any advice on how to prevent a profile pic from looking pixelated? My picture is 200x600 and looks great on my computer but when I upload it to Facebook it looks somewhat pixelated and blurry.

Your advice is greatly appreciated!

Great Stuff Keith.
Might be worth putting the updated new maximum height requirement up the top od this post.

Otherwise thanks - saved me ages.

Shame FB makes a mess compressing your artwork innit?

Hi, cool article. Helped me a lot. Thanx and greetings from Germany!

180 x 540 doesn’t work anymore - April 2011. Facebook says it’s too big.  What’s the new size?

Thanks! Great tips! With your guidance, I now have a profile page that rocks. I used the 180 x 540 px with 52 resolution in PhotoShop and layers of my photos.  Next, I plan to update my non-profit’s page!  This was fun!

I simply cannot get my facebook page to accept my profile picture upload. I am an admin.  I have tried using fb as Steve and using facebook as PageName. It says “loading” forever. Nothing happens. Dimensions are 180 x 370. Tried tif, jpg, png. Does it matter if it’s 96 ppi or 72 ppi?  Pixels is pixels, right? Help?!

I’m having a thumbnail issue. Uploaded pic 180x95 pixels. It looks fine on the profile page. Even though I left a huge margin around the actual graphics to accomodate fb’s 15 pixel margin, my thumbnail is still not showing the entire logo.

Inspiring love the way you have been write your post and deliver your thoughts great work man

so what is the new size of facebobok ???

Thanks Mate!! Cheers!! =D

Take a look - Works perfectly with PNG but not with JPG, res is 150! Great page… thanks ;o)

Why does my personal fb profile picture show up in my newsfeed for my business page?  I changed my personal FB profile picture and it now shows up on my business page newsfeed.  I want my FB page profile picture to show up, not my personal one!

I found that it has to be at least 180 wide no smaller and cannot be longer than 540.  SO people say 180 x 540 but what I found to work is like 181 x 539.  I know this seems werid but it worked for me.  On post #26 the link sends you to facebook help and it says all pictures now have to be at least 180 wide. Hope this info helps others.

@Stuart I just uploaded a 180 x 540 one today (May 2011) and I can confirm it was ok and displays as it should. Perhaps if facebook says your image is ‘too big’ it’s referring to file size rather than resolution

I would like to thank you for the efforts you made in writing this post. I am hoping the same best work from you in the future as well.

buy facebook fans

Thankyou for giving such helpful instructions/advice on this topic, I for one really appreciate it!

please move the update part in the very beginning of the post. I made the logo by settings above and only afterwards saw the update.  But still - thanks for your post. Nice inspiration source.

Hi Keith

I was having a problem uploading an image to my Business Page on FB. I took your suggestion to Save as WEb. And bingo. I uploaded it. I guess it must be all the meta data n color profile that caused the error.

Thanks!

Thanks! Great tips! With your guidance, I now have a profile page that rocks. I used the 180 x 540 px with 52 resolution in PhotoShop and layers of my photos.  Next, I plan to update my non-profit’s page!  This was fun!

I have a great vertical banner that is 180x540 but when I try to load it as my profile picture on my business page it tells me to ‘load something more square’ - GRRRR.  Help.

Great Article. Thank you Kwith.

Awesome tutorial, very thoroughly researched and explained – going to try this soon!

I usually change my Facebook profile image by just doing the basic uploading and cropping process. I didn’t know there’s more I can do to maximize this option. Great post! It’s both informative and useful.

Hi everyone! My FB profile page keeps appearing blurry no matter what I do. Could anyone suggest who I can solve this problem?

it really works . ! thanks

Thanks, it helped me too.

My profile picture keeps coming out blurry once it is posted to my page. I tried a few variations on size, and always used a high dpi, but still a bit fuzzy. Any suggestions? I saved the graphic as both a .jpg and .png, 300 dpi and no such luck. Can anyone please help me :(

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150253292149701&set=a.430824659700.211664.663699700&type=1&theater;

Thank You!
Just used your guide to understand and subsequently improve my Facebook Profile picture. This is a valuable piece of information. Thank You.

I am having trouble with my logo on facebook, when I upload it, the logo is very clear but as soon as I click on the thumbnail to drag it to the correct position it goes blurry.

Any ideas.

The link is http://www.facebook.com/pages/NIC-N-FIT-PERSONAL-TRAINING/258936434132072?sk=wall

Any help would be much appreciated

Take a look at Victoria’s secret pink facebook page, they do a terrific job using the picture profile, you can use it as a template for your image.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/269447_10150697393735471_26972120470_19530502_714349_n.jpg

Great post. I read all the comments. nice..:)

I’ve been having an issue with this. It says to make it more square. What is up with that. :S Any suggestions.

The edit image function has changed now too.

You first have to go to ‘change picture’ and there below the image you can ‘edit thumbnail’ to reposition it.

Great article by the way!

I have seen some sites with tips for Facebook stuff, but this is about the best I’ve seen yet. Great site, and great tips, thanks.

I have not found a way to use my own pics for those “likes” pages further down on the profile page (such as music, jobs you’ve had, books you like etc.). It seems that it is set up to pull in an image from an already established FB page, if there is one for the music, company, book etc, but even that doesn’t work all the time as I often can find a page and image on FB, but it won’t display as available when I type the name in on my profile likes blocks. Any way to use images I can bring in from elsewhere or that I can design myself?

Having an update on the sizes would be nice

Great page & instructions, thanks.

Still not happy with the resolution of the image but that’s Facebook’s fault, is there anyway I can get it to show a sharper image?

This may have been asked already, but when I tried uploading my 180 x 540 image to my Group page, it only shows a tiny square thumbnail of the image at the top of the page. Are group images different than ompersonal pages?

Hi,

to upload pictures on Facebook I would use click.to! In a few seconds your pictures are uploaded in your account!

Hi Keith, thanks for the great tut! I designed and uploaded a profile pic successfully on http://www.facebook.com/pages/Adbhuth/257068124324533 thanks to your precise size instructions. You’re awesome.

I can’t believe the freeloaders on this board who will keep PILING UP THE QUESTIONS! Come on, you guys haven’t paid Keith, and the sense of entitlement out here is just beyond egregious. Is it a lack of ethics, or is it a lack of etiquette? More than that, however, I am surprised with YOU Keith, you are *actually* patient enough to reply to all these people personally and help them with their problems… that’s great!

Hope you have a great day!

thansk for the info, really helps. Facebook has major changes in 2011 and now the profile picture for fan page has been change from 200 x 600 pixels to 180 x 540

I really like your style of blogging.Thank you for sharing with us.

With the new profile banner, I am trying to have my logo display there, since its somewhat landscape wide. My problem started when in my regular or personal user, the banner shows perfectly, but in the page the tag pictures are changed consistently into a random order. Any comments or sugggestions on how to make them steady and in the order of latest to oldest tag, like in your personal profile?

Thank you for the info you have provided it was a great help.

I have used it to generate links with QR codes for my website, location & contact details.

I think this is the only way to create links in your profile picture?

Thanks again

Nice post

I just used a 200x600 and it worked just fine.

Hello, I really enjoy reading your posts, thank you for the great post!
Every new visit i have always a new stuff of information in your blog,really your blog,is marvelous.

Hi frinds my name is munib shah mx frome chakwal . How are you

thx for the tip.  I’ve been killing myself trying to upload a picture and did a search. Your blog came up and I followed the steps, it works fine.  I had to save the picture on photoshop first with the size specification you gave.

Thx

@Steve (and anyone else):
You either need to multiply 180 by 3 and make your logo that length (which equals 540). Or divide 370 by 3, and make that the width of your logo (which equals 123.333…).

This is how Facebook vertical logos/photos work in profiles and pages.

Click my name above, to see what I mean. I’ve even uploaded files as big as 250 x 750. It’s all in the ratio.

Hope this helps!

Great tips, a neat website and such a professional approach to all the enquiires. I admire your conviction to this and wish you every success in the future. Thanks so much

Hey just wanted to say thanks for the tips on how to adjust the thumbnail, facebook have updated the process now, but one of the other commenter’s had the answer :D

dave..

Does anyone know how I can get a photo for my admin icon? FB uses the profile photo when I post to my own page but when I interact with others via comments etc it uses the blank default photo and I can’t find anywhere in the editor that allows for me to change the admin photo. Did I set my page up incorrectly? Are the profile and admin photo’s symbiotic to where I need to resize the profile photo? Is the profile photo supposed to be my admin photo as well?

So confused. I would so appreciate any and all help. Thank you for your time.

Article was a life-saver; we played with using the edge of the image area for some intentional cropping; http://www.facebook.com/gatherball.

But add me to the list asking that the dimensions in the article be changed to be correct!  I made the image to the wrong size first, before seeing that.  No reason to keep wrong info around, right?

hlo

Nice little tutorial. With these images I always think bigger is better - especially when trying to promote your brand.

Keith, this is excellent!.  long time I wanted to figure this out!!......GREAT JOB!!

When it’s cold you want something that can really protect you from the cold and wet,

I did not realise you could edit and make an actual thumbnail. This is amazing, thank you so much for this helpful tip! :)

I just wanted to let everyone know that I’ve updated this post with an all new article. Here is the link to the new post: http://www.clear-river.com/weblog/comments/update_making_the_most_of_your_facebook_page_profile_picture/