Friday, May 15, 2015

Create A Profile Banner

Make a Profile Banner


People with profile pages, Web pages or blogs usually can add a banner to the site or page that gives information (or at least about the named persona or avatar selected to use at the site). These banners are known as "profile banners" and make your page more customized. If you have access to Photoshop or a similar graphics editing software, you can make a quality profile banner.


Instructions


1. Draw out on paper what you would like your profile banner to look like. There are many different approaches you can take, and your choices will be impacted by the nature of the website or forum the banner will be placed on. For instance, a site about heavy metal music would be a strange place for a flowery pink banner.


2. Organize information you want to include. Some profile banners are exclusively about your life on the site, giving details such as your user name and how long you have been a member. Some profile banners show more personal information like age and gender.


3. Load any graphic or picture you would like to use in your profile banner onto your computer by transferring it from a digital source like a CD or SD card, or by scanning it.


4. Open Photoshop. Select "File" and click "New." In the new document dialog that opens enter the size you want your banner to be in the width and height spaces. Many banners are around 500 pixels by 70 pixels, but this varies widely. Make the background "Transparent" if you want to place the items in the banner directly against the Web page background. Otherwise, use the default settings and click "OK."


5. Select the "Paintbucket" or "Gradient" tool from the tool bar. Using the tool you selected, choose (in the tool options) the color, pattern or gradient you would like to add to the background and add it to the canvas.


6. Select "File" and click "Open" In the dialog search for the image files you loaded and open them. "Copy" and "Paste" each one you want to use into the banner document. Select "Edit," then "Transform" and use the "Scale" function to fit the images on the banner.


7. Use the "Shape" tools set the "Fill" to create any shapes (such as borders or bars) you want on your banner.


8. Select the "Text" tool and use it to enter the text you want for the page. When you are done, save your work as a high resolution JPEG.