5 Creative Ways to Hack Your Facebook Profile Photo

Posted by Guest Poster on February 23rd, 2009 11:00 AM

This is a guest post by Rob Banagale. Rob Banagale is co-founder of Neutrinos, LLC, a digital media company specializing in iPhone application design and consulting based in Boston, MA. Rob advises clients on how they can extend their marketing reach to iPhone users, including the iPhone application publishing process. He has authored a Facebook application and remains interested in the design of social media platforms.

Coolwhip hair dude.

One of the most important parts of a person’s Facebook presence is their profile photo. This is displayed in the top left corner of a page. The photo can be a newly uploaded image or it may be drawn from any of your online albums.

Typically, a profile photo shows someone’s face, and appears in front of the light blue-grey line that connects from the left side of the profile to the left-most tab. View an example of a typical profile page with a normal photo.

Unlike Myspace, Facebook’s uses a common color and layout for every profile. This makes the site look better overall, but also limits your ability to affect the look of your profile. You can display Facebook applications on the left sidebar, and have them in tabs, but any changes to how the page’s style or how it is displayed overall are limited.

Hacking the Facebook Profile Photo

There isn’t a legal way to ‘hack’ Facebook, but there is a method to changing your profile photo to make your profile look subtly different and cooler. It isn’t obvious, but the placement of a profile photo allows you to lightly innovate on Facebook’s sacred profile layout.

How Does It Work?

When you create a profile photo from an existing album image, Facebook lets you crop the photo down to whatever dimensions you choose. When you visit your profile the selected photo is displayed scaled down to a maximum height and width allowed by Facebook.

The first thing you need to understand is how much space you have to play with. Facebook displays profile photos at a maximum of 200 pixels in width. If you go beyond this, Facebook resizes your profile photo down to 200 while maintaining the aspect ratio vertically. Facebook will display a photo in your profile that is up to 600 pixels in height. This means that Facebook will happily display any image as large as 200 x 600 without otherwise changing or resizing it.

A Blank Facebook Profile Photo Background

Now that you know the maximum dimensions of your profile photo, the base trick is simple. Facebook is set up to display the top of an image 52 pixels north of the thin grey line. Normally, all profile photos are placed at this height above the line.

In order to achieve an unbroken line across your profile you need only create an image with a grey (#D8DFEA) 52 pixels below the top. In addition, you’ll need to paintbucket the area above the line to match the light blue (#EFF0F5) used in the profile header.

For more information about the colors used in Facebook’s style sheet, see this guide for Facebook application developers by Bill Konrad. I wrote a Facebook application about a year ago, read about the DMB Facebook application here.

Subbing this blank template allows you to achieve something Facebook normally does not allow: the option to not display a profile photo at all. A new Facebook account with no profile photo displays a box with a drawing of a mystery person with soft-serve icecream hair on it. Using a blank lined template allows you to add a little ‘negative’ space to your profile that is normally not possible.

The fun begins when you overlay a photo or image on top of the blank template. The hardest part about doing this is isolating an image so that it can cleanly offset the background template. My suggestion for this is to use Adobe Photoshop to draw a selection area around your photo or image and then remove the edges.

Give Yourself a Living Room on Your Facebook Profile

There are a lot of fun things you can do pairing foreground cutout images with the background Facebook template. The first one I did was to create a sort of mini-living room for me to hang out in. Here’s a screenshot of my profile using this particular photo.

I wanted to do a play on the little grey line and decided to try to create the illusion that I was hanging from it. I started by taking a photograph of me hanging from a doorway and then isolating the image. I then overlayed the photo on a longer version of the blank Facebook profile photo template.

Here’s a look at that process and the final result:

Creating a Hanging From My Wall Effect

And here’s a screenshot of my profile using this effect.

Another fun foreground image I used was a colored in Giraffe. This gave my profile a fun look and because it pushed down the information in my left sidebar, a lot of negative space around my wall updates.

A 200×600 Pixel Profile Photo Overlayed on a Blank Template

View a screenshot of the complete profile using the ‘giraffe hack.’

Playing with the Thin Grey Line

A lot more can be done with the look of the thin grey line, such as creating a jagged or curved edge that interacts with an overlayed image. I got a little weird and created some stalactites over a green unicorn with the Earth floating above and below the header line. View a screenshot of the complete profile using the ‘green unicorn hack.’

Image isolation in Photoshop is like using scissors to cut very closely around a photo torn from a magazine. Photoshop has a magnetic lasso, a magic wand and a quick selection tool to help you. There are a lot of guides on how to perform selections, here are a few that will help you:

A PDF on object selection and isolation
A video on object selection and isolation
A web tutorial with images on the Quick Selection tool.

I’m including the some example images to help you get started in a zip file at the end of this entry.

Hack Caveats

The hack falls apart a few different ways. The easiest is to post a status update that is long enough to wrap around to two lines of text. You can avoid this by posting your long status update, and then clearing it afterwards. View a screenshot of this problem. This leaves your current status as blank, but the update will still appear on your news reel and the illusion of the hack will be maintained.

Another point of note in using this hack is the display of your profile photo in wall listings. The profile photo is shrunk down quite a bit. A plus of this is that if you choose a long, 200×600 photo, it can look rather cool and set you apart from other Facebook people when you’re shown in a list.

Conclusion and Downloads

For many, your Facebook presence is an important part of your online presentation of self. You can differentiate yourself on Facebook by tweaking the look of your profile by using a specialized profile photo.

I’m making available a zip file that includes a number of original, layered .psd files that will help you get a quick start on hacking your Facebook profile photo. I’d love to see some examples of other ideas people come up with. Feel free to post or send me a screenshot of what you came up with and I’ll add it to this blog post.

Update
You can access the photo kit by following this link.

Comments (125 Responses)

Facebook User - February 23rd, 2009 at 11:41 am

This is one of the best articles I’ve read in a while. When will the zip file be made available?

Eric - February 23rd, 2009 at 2:29 pm

It’s available on the author’s own web site, http://banagale.com/ Just scroll to the end of the full blog post as it appears over there, and you’ll find the link.

tadpole - February 23rd, 2009 at 2:57 pm

Another cool app is The Mozer. Its a facebook app that creates a mosaic of your profile pic from the profile pics of your friends. Check out: http://www.new.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=6612418732

Nick Stamoulis - February 23rd, 2009 at 3:39 pm

This is great. I haven’t seen anyone take advantage of this yet.

Paul Morales - February 23rd, 2009 at 4:48 pm

Those are some cool effects. Thanks

tim - February 23rd, 2009 at 11:52 pm

hmmm, how does this look with different web browsers and font sizes?

Narayanan Hariharan - February 24th, 2009 at 12:06 am

One of the best Facebook hacks I’ve seen in a while! I’m gonna try this out right now.. Thanks for the hack Rob

BTW, spreading the news on Twitter too

Amber - February 24th, 2009 at 12:45 am

Hi! I loved this idea. I tried my hand at making my own little living room. And w/o realizing it, I chose the same exact couch! Complete accident!…. Anyway here is a link to my screenshot. http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n127/armstrongamber/facebookHack.jpg

Let me know if it doesn’t work.
Thanks for the great idea. I can’t wait to come up with more!

Josue Sanchez - February 24th, 2009 at 12:50 am

thanks! i just implemented it and it looks very neat!

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1906737&l=a1e75&id=515492460

Max - February 24th, 2009 at 2:07 am

Wow! This is really cool! I’m going to try it right noww!!

Jan DV - February 24th, 2009 at 7:21 am

Excellent idea, it’s so much fun!

Henry Elliss - February 24th, 2009 at 9:14 am

Sadly, as soon as you make a status update that wraps the line, the whole thing goes out of sync!

Chin - February 24th, 2009 at 11:01 am

My first try: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3660/3306025491_6a149b5ed0.jpg

and my lovely wife: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3402/3306061585_4e616ea223.jpg

james - February 25th, 2009 at 3:22 am

http://img19.imageshack.us/my.php?image=48849639.jpg

My first attempt.
Took pics of random bottles around house then used gimp o edit (bit crap when i made them smaller pixalated the image abit hahaha)

might post more at a later date,

Matt - February 25th, 2009 at 5:28 am

I tried this, and even with a single line status update, I had to shift my gray bar down to 110 pixels instead of 52 pixels.

Ian P. Hines - February 25th, 2009 at 7:53 am

First attempt.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30965623&l=9248b&id=53000463

As I thought about it, I realized that by removing my face from my Profile Photo (and as a result my thumbnail) I could achieve an added level of privacy. If my Friends want to see photos of me they can look at the Albums… if they’re on the right Friends List, that is.

Great post!

tim - February 25th, 2009 at 1:43 pm

Great idea!

Made my own:
http://www.ver-voort.com/example.jpg

Facebook User - February 25th, 2009 at 6:38 pm

I will be doing this right about now

Joe - February 25th, 2009 at 9:16 pm

This is actually pretty cool. I like the irony how Facebook’s uniformity is the very thing that lets you bypass their design. Nice work.

Brad McCall - February 25th, 2009 at 9:32 pm

I saw one of my friends had done this, he was peeking above the white area like he was behind it. It doesn’t show up on the mobile application, but made me stop and wonder - how he’d do that? Great post, thanks. - @bradmccall

Jason Hoch - February 26th, 2009 at 10:05 am

fantastic, i’ve hacked a couple - my zero g flight now in the header, and another of an off-road trip I took. Following my FB image to see it!

Manda - February 26th, 2009 at 3:21 pm

I decided to go with a Mario 3 theme.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3566/3312439106_23064db991_o.png

Jerry - February 26th, 2009 at 3:22 pm

I had thought of doing something like this before but wasn’t motivated until I saw your post… thanks for the great ideas!

My first try:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3308/3311610819_73542812b0_o.png

Joffrey - February 26th, 2009 at 8:59 pm

Very funny. :’)

CLV - February 27th, 2009 at 1:06 am

I tried to do this once, but the status length threw me off I couldn’t figure out why it would get unaligned . Thanks for solving that issue for me!

Dan - February 27th, 2009 at 2:28 am

Well, it was about time someone wrote an article about this. I was doing this since day one.

Elli - February 27th, 2009 at 2:35 am

This looks neat, but I can’t help but wonder: how come your mini feed shows the same time that you changed your pic in every single screenshot?

denise - February 28th, 2009 at 1:46 pm

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?

Kyle Sevenoaks - February 28th, 2009 at 1:59 pm

I thought I’d just share the one I did, wasn’t much but it does add a certain touch to the profile.

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j166/spikae/facebookgithak.jpg

Good post!

Casey - March 4th, 2009 at 3:01 pm

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3316/3328410173_5fa33a8795_o.jpg

Sayne - March 5th, 2009 at 12:26 am

Can I has CSS Padding pls kthxbye

h8r - March 5th, 2009 at 1:02 am

this is some hipstery bullshit. Facebook exist to consume your time and minds and turn you into sheep. Burn it to the ground.

bofmanye - March 5th, 2009 at 11:07 am

You people are sick.

superstoker - March 5th, 2009 at 1:25 pm

i did this a long time ago, but not as well, i also found the layout looked very slightly different on different browsers, so I didn’t bother going any further, but this is very cool

shameless self promotion:
check out superstoker.com the best free snowboard (and other) videos

Thor - March 5th, 2009 at 5:46 pm

HEY!

ALSO! Your Current status changes the “52 pixel ” border thing

.
.
.
.
Don forget about that!

Cora - March 5th, 2009 at 8:36 pm

having fun with this - I wish I’d thought of it!! Here’s one I did for my son’s page - having a hard time aligning things precisely. Ideas….?
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/profile.php?id=1159385075

Susan - March 7th, 2009 at 1:17 pm

I’m having fun playing around with this too! I like playing around on computers, but I’m no techie, so I was proud of myself for being able to do this!

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=46959078&l=27f1a&id=4903114

Rahul Roy - March 12th, 2009 at 7:12 am

Awesome article. as i am commenting i am uploading my own 200×600 display pic.

Kari Lonning - March 14th, 2009 at 6:53 pm

I completely enjoyed reading about the possibilities!!!! I’m looking forward to seeing what other people came up with. Thank-you for sharing this info. Kari

Nikki - March 15th, 2009 at 11:43 am

Excellent. This was way fun. Thanks.

http://tiny.cc/HHeAt

Adam Solecki - March 20th, 2009 at 1:21 pm

two weeks ago or so I just changed my picture like this, and expanded the menu with a custom value of the text.

Ayanna - March 21st, 2009 at 5:01 pm

Great fun, here’s a link to my attempt:

http://tinyurl.com/dzrx66

Shawn - March 21st, 2009 at 11:02 pm

Sweet. Thanks. Everyone is wanting to know how I did that. I keep telling them, “Ancient Chinese secret…”

Arsh - March 22nd, 2009 at 11:06 am

really nice.. made one myself..

Me - March 22nd, 2009 at 1:43 pm

A “hack”? Why do people throw this word around so freely, when in effect this technique has nothing to do with hacking?

HeriNXI - March 22nd, 2009 at 9:07 pm

thanks for the sharing, nice info and pretty funny heck….

Juanacatlán - March 23rd, 2009 at 1:19 am

Doesn’t work with facebook’s new layout… it’s a bit off… Care to make a new template???

victoria - March 23rd, 2009 at 2:57 pm

I had fun doing this!! thanks for the help!!

http://picasaweb.google.com/victoriaCp/Uploads#5316459074617868722

its not perfect… but it’s still fun

durf - March 23rd, 2009 at 4:38 pm

Very clever, Thanks for sharing this!
I notice that if I enlarge type in my browser the gray seam goes out of line but I’ve only begun playing around…

here’s my first try:
http://img25.imageshack.us/my.php?image=fbcapt.tif

Arsh - March 24th, 2009 at 1:58 am

@Juanacatlán — Actually u need to make two images * one with 52 pixels & other with 65 pixels * n u need to keep switching between the two *damn.. it keeps changing*

Made one myself.. u can click on my name to see it!!

Jezper - March 24th, 2009 at 4:13 am

With the new layout, this doesn’t work well with different browsers. If it’s correct in Safari on Mac, it’s correct on Firefox on PC, but with Firefox on Mac, it’s not looking well anywhere. Too bad.

Push Eject - March 24th, 2009 at 12:18 pm

Awesome! Hung the kids out to dry: http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g103/pusheject/ProfileImage.jpg

Richard J. Griffin - March 24th, 2009 at 8:08 pm

I like Ostriches! http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l276/NiteCloak/myfbostrich.png

Oni Carpeso - March 25th, 2009 at 1:16 am

The new facebook layout made me manually edit. i think (at the moment that i am typing this) the top image(color is #EFEFF7) should be 67 pixels long from the top with a bottom line (color #DEDFEF).

steve - March 25th, 2009 at 12:33 pm

looks like they just changed it. i’m counting 68-pixels total including the line, so 67 pixels above the line.

steve - March 25th, 2009 at 1:17 pm

also, the new colors are:
top background box: EDEFF4
line: D8DFEA

DBeard - March 26th, 2009 at 3:26 pm

Really creative idea. I’m going to change my profile picture now to try this.

DBeard - March 26th, 2009 at 5:43 pm

Also, I believe that the pixels changed again. to get mine to work I needed 50 pixels of the background color and the line was at 51 pixels. The colors are still the same though.

Ford - March 27th, 2009 at 5:04 am

Hi. I am a hacker. I can get you a myspace,hi5, facebook,msn/hotmail,aol/aim,yahoo,gmail…basically any password. I do charge money to get a password. Once I do have password, I’ll show proof I have it. Are you interested? Please email me at fordf202006@yahoo.com

**I CANNOT RECOVER A LOST/STOLEN/FORGOTTEN PASSWORD**

Facebook User - March 27th, 2009 at 12:49 pm

This will not work if your status is more than one line. You will have to compensate for that.

Aaron - March 27th, 2009 at 5:32 pm

Hi, awesome tuts!

Here is my first attempt at the hanging from the wall technique:
http://i44.tinypic.com/2pyw0na.jpg

Arthur Carmazzi - March 27th, 2009 at 10:18 pm

great stuff, thank you! now how can i reposition the thumbnail so head dosnt get cut off?

Eric B - March 29th, 2009 at 11:13 am

Awesome. I just “hacked” my profile pic to a nice 600 pixel height. Arthur, you can adjust the thumbnail right from your profile page; move your cursor near the top of your profile picture & click on “change picture”. Then select “edit thumbnail” from the popup. Adjust as desired, and done!

Paul Tibbetts - April 1st, 2009 at 7:53 am

Brilliant!
Will have some fun with this
Thanks for sharing

Spreadsheet Ninja - April 3rd, 2009 at 9:34 pm

Very awesome job here! I will also try my hand at this. Thanks for such a wonderful idea!

Spreadsheet Ninja - April 4th, 2009 at 3:11 am

Nice, here is my go at it.

http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/6067/facebookhack.png

buenos aires apartments - April 4th, 2009 at 9:26 am

great post - some really good ideas. Have seen people do this for the myspace page but never thought of it for facebook. Thanks

Massimo Burgio - April 8th, 2009 at 7:13 am

Great post, great tips, and very brilliant hack! Thanks! I just did it!!! hahaha http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=836394740

Thanks dude!

ghprod - April 12th, 2009 at 3:23 am

great!!!

I am new to know how great this!

Thnx

Webbo - April 26th, 2009 at 9:35 am

This is great. I’m going to take advantage of this hack. Thanks for the info.

devrim gür - May 1st, 2009 at 6:07 pm

my profile photo: http://img18.imageshack.us/my.php?image=fbprofil.jpg

Mike Banger - May 5th, 2009 at 8:41 pm

Thanks for the tips I totally rocked mine!

tiny-fb.com/MikeBanger

Jorge Lomeli - May 6th, 2009 at 6:59 pm

Great tip!!

Just finished mine…

here:

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s2/jorgelomeli/Picture1-1.png

What do u think?

Martha Liopson - May 8th, 2009 at 11:24 am

Great post and good ideas very creative idea.

Jake - May 11th, 2009 at 11:48 am

“A “hack”? Why do people throw this word around so freely, when in effect this technique has nothing to do with hacking?”

What he said.

Asep Komara Sanjaya - May 16th, 2009 at 12:33 am

Nice hacks! You’re very brilliant dude… Thanks for sharing.

stef - June 3rd, 2009 at 12:29 pm

Here’s my attempt.http://i39.tinypic.com/2h3u6au.jpg

Lorraine Siew - June 5th, 2009 at 12:42 pm

Hey man, thanks so much for the tips!
I used your giraffe psd to make the photo for a public profile i admin.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nicol-David/11191477265

Totally made my day. Thanks again!

Ed Collins - June 8th, 2009 at 8:43 pm

My first attempt:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1270542325

Bridgetti - June 14th, 2009 at 8:04 pm

Hi,

Thank you for the advice. I love the effect I got with Pages!

Best wishes!

Vasily Zaitsev - June 15th, 2009 at 4:17 am

Nice & Neat Bro. Check out my pop-out facebook profile photo.
http://www.facebook.com/izzuddinmeister

Josh Kieschnick - June 24th, 2009 at 8:01 pm

i think facebook has changed the design before my very eyes. i tried this and it worked great but now it looks like the bar goes about 20 pixels lower http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mara-Conflict/63430991352

Shelley - June 26th, 2009 at 12:58 pm

I love this - great idea!

Hannah - June 27th, 2009 at 10:43 pm

http://www.facebook.com/hannahrb

Yuuup.

Mateo - July 3rd, 2009 at 12:20 am

thenks! http://www.facebook.com/mateioo

Dale B - July 4th, 2009 at 2:41 am

Pretty sweet tips. I need to find a good graphics program to clear the background of the images and I am set.

Chicago Photographer - July 7th, 2009 at 4:06 am

THANKS!

My first attempt: FANTASTIC!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Candace-M-Zynda/89821097712

She609 - July 8th, 2009 at 4:04 pm

That was very informative…thank you!

stuart - July 11th, 2009 at 5:30 am

this is the best.

http://www.facebook.com/stuart.verschoyle?ref=profile

Clay Franklin - July 15th, 2009 at 2:12 am

Thank you so much for this information. I just found your site tonight and have been here for hours. I just send this link out on a tweet with a offer to help others with their picture.
http://facebook.com/clayfranklin

Facebook User - July 15th, 2009 at 2:17 am

Thank you so much for this information. I just found your blog and have been here for hours. I just sent out a tweet with this link and offer to help with photoshop if needed.
I just figured out how to have my picture show up by clicking the connect with facebook logo on the right of this comment field.

Clay Franklin - July 15th, 2009 at 2:27 am

I like the facebook connect option, yet it seems when I log out of facebook and the site the picture is gone.
I will need to search your site for how the facebook connect for comments works.
Looks like I will be here all night learning new cool stuff.

brion - July 16th, 2009 at 4:48 am

can sumone please tell how u do this in better steps????? i hav a pc and am usin google chrome or safari or windows vista

Nick Young - July 17th, 2009 at 1:03 pm

Great guide. Thanks!

However, it unfortunately doesn’t appear to be consistent over differenct browsers. It was fine from home last night; I had a look at work today and it was slightly off for some reason - any ideas anyone?

It’s also worth mentioning that if your ’status’ stretches over more than one line, this also throws it off the 52 pixel allignment.

Ta!

Andy - July 18th, 2009 at 5:13 pm

Just updated our profile picture, much better!

http://www.facebook.com/reviewhostel

Feel free to add us and comment.

Cheers

ford - July 26th, 2009 at 4:15 am

Hi. I am a hacker. I can get you a myspace, facebook, hi5, yahoo, msn, hotmail, aol/aim, gmail…etc password. I do charge money to get a password thouguh. I’ll show proof I have password though. Are you interested? Please email me at fordf202006@yahoo.com

**I CANNOT RECOVER A LOST/STOLEN/FORGOTTEN PASSWORD**

Jesse Gardner - July 28th, 2009 at 8:51 am

Great tip, thanks.

Here’s my “peek” approach: http://img.skitch.com/20090728-f138a329waud2n8uex1tti1pun.png

Cristian Galletti - July 28th, 2009 at 12:23 pm

Hi all, look at this creative profile pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=128905&id=104797936056&ref=mf

Enjoy, bye.

ada - July 30th, 2009 at 6:55 pm

Is there anyone else who has problems with the hack-profile-photo-pack.zip? I only get an error message of unexpected end of file…

Setiyo - September 6th, 2009 at 8:58 am

Waw.. keren nih artikel.. mo gue coba aja ah. Tanks

Norine - September 6th, 2009 at 10:29 pm

Here’s mine! http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2736622&l=1bb0ec69d9&id=716912351

Norine - September 6th, 2009 at 10:32 pm

Oh, and here’s another: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2058414&l=1e77804f0c&id=716912351

Paul Duplantis - September 11th, 2009 at 3:28 pm

I cannot get the exact color of the facebook header to match. This is the color you provided. #EFF0F5

If you look at our fan page http://facebook.dj/quired/ you will see that is does not match exactly.

Any clues?

Wayne - September 16th, 2009 at 11:49 am

Dude your awsome… thanks for the tips!

John Lyon - September 22nd, 2009 at 3:02 am

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1560990100&ref=profile

after a few tries i think i like this one the best

Ron - September 28th, 2009 at 1:41 pm

Check out this site. I creates a facebook profile photo for you. Pretty cool.

Ariah Fine - October 7th, 2009 at 1:44 am

Just finished mine. The .zip file above and profile pic specifics are inaccurate. You should update it.

Here’s my profile hack:
http://www.facebook.com/InsideNorthside

Michael Babbish - October 12th, 2009 at 1:06 pm

Anyone else having problems with safari/firefox? Sometimes it is too much, others too little at the header.

X - October 12th, 2009 at 10:09 pm

haha.. funny, and creative too

Nic - October 19th, 2009 at 9:05 pm

Thanks for the info, except its a bit off.

Here’s what you need in order to accomplish this successfully and easy.

1. View your facebook profile page.
2. Print screen/ or screen capture(prntscrn (by scroll lock key)), how ever you do that.
3. Paste into photoshop now crop to dimensions you want.
4. Ok, this is where I may lose some of you. Click and hold down on the marquee tool, so that you see a single column marquee tool. Now take that tool and select the area so that all you have is that white bottom and grey top and drag till you have a nice empty facebook profile picture.
5. It should look like this http://i33.tinypic.com/2z69f6g.jpg
6. In fact, I believe that is all lined up so you can use that as a template if you’d like. And now just make a new layer, and create!
7. And ya you get the point, common sense :]

enjoy!

Nic - October 19th, 2009 at 9:09 pm

Sorry if I sounded so brash Rob, about to leave work and thought I’d try and help before I go. Thanks alot for this information , but it could use a little update ;]

Wolf19 - October 22nd, 2009 at 7:11 am

American studies confirm this. ,

Gangster84 - October 23rd, 2009 at 6:21 am

He has a shoulder that dislocates on command. ,

Wedding Magician - October 25th, 2009 at 4:44 pm

One of the most informative posts I’ve read regarding facebook, many thanks for the free app too. I’d better getting cracking on creating my profile photo!!

Suman - October 28th, 2009 at 7:34 am

Great Advice and Tips. Really Helpful.

dNz - October 29th, 2009 at 5:33 am

I’ve been playing around with this since for a while … Having issues with the “52px” border though and usually end up doing trial and error until i get it right. Also, the color code given for the border seems a bit off when I look closely. Nevertheless, here’s my latest update (a homage to Spirited Away): http://picpaste.com/profile.png

prajakta - October 30th, 2009 at 3:30 am

Nise one…………..

Rob Banagale - November 2nd, 2009 at 12:58 am

So glad that this continues to bring joy to people. Thanks to everyone who has said something nice and contributed updates / more information and most importantly screenshots of their creations.

I will consider doing an update to this, I’ll have to reconnect with Nick.

Again, many thanks and keep posting your work!

rob banagale

Oliver Rainer - November 5th, 2009 at 8:40 am

Thanks for the guide! Had fun getting creative with this… here is my result: http://twitpic.com/ocj0r

Chris - November 9th, 2009 at 7:26 pm

Rob,

Would love to see an update to this post. I’m currently trying to create a profile pic “hack”, though it is proving to be quite challenging for someone lacking decent photoshop skills Regardless, I’d still love to see any new hacks you may have come across since the original post

Susan Abbott - November 12th, 2009 at 8:27 pm

Man, this is GREAT!!! I love what this looks like.
Thanks for sharing the layered files.
Brilliant!

Susan Abbott - November 12th, 2009 at 8:28 pm

here’s what it looks like. Thanks a bunch.

Brian Young - November 12th, 2009 at 9:53 pm

This is absolutely terrific. You can see my version at /www.facebook.com//BrianYoungGA.

I wonder if we can add hotspots or hyperlinks????

Facebook User - November 18th, 2009 at 11:15 pm

This was a marvelous article!! I created my profile photo and it looks great! Thanks so much! http://facebook.com/onlinewoman

Clayton Nummer - November 19th, 2009 at 12:09 am

I did one for my profile, and one for my photography page. Both are fairly simple, but I still like it a lot better than a regular picture. Here’s the one for my photography page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/West-Bloomfield-Township-MI/Clayton-James-Photography/143649832372