How can I make a perfect Facebook cover photo – or perfectly crop any photo?

How to make a perfect Facebook cover photo

Most cameras now take such high resolution photos that we can capture an image and crop out an excellent photo later. Whether you're making a Facebook header, an 8x10 or a poster, the steps for making a perfectly-sized photo are:

1. Learn the optimal resolution
2. Crop to the image you want in the dotphoto edit tools
3. Re-size the cropped image to meet one of the two dimensions
4. Crop the re-sized image so that the second dimension is also perfect.
5. Optional: add text to identify your photo

Here is a photo of a carousel cropped for a Facebook header on dotphoto, then pasted to Facebook, and used as a Facebook cover photo. Detailed steps to create a Facebook header are below. These same steps can apply to cropping any photo to any exact pixel size. 

1. Learn the optimal resolution.

The dimensions for a Facebook cover photo are 1702 x 630 tall or, for lower resolution images, to 851 wide x 315 tall.  (A LinkedIn header is 1584 x 396.)

2. Crop to the image you want in the dotphoto edit tools.

Click on the photo, and then on the edit icon (the pencil) in the upper left to show the editing tools.

Choose the Crop Tool from the side menu.

Drag the corners and side bars to crop the best part of the photo. Check the Delete Cropped Pixels box at the top and check the Confirm box.  Leave plenty of vertical space around your subject: a Facebook cover photo is a wide, short image, and we'll crop the extra vertical space in step 4.

3. Re-size the cropped width to 851.

In this example, we are setting the size to 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels tall.

Choose Image and Image Size to change the set the image width

4. Set the Canvas size toe 851 by 315

Copy and paste the image into a Facebook post or tap the X in the upper right to close the editing feature.

Choose File and Save to save your edited image.

Go back to the new photo, right-click on it, and choose Copy image.

In Facebook, start a post, and paste the photo into your Facebook post. (Ctrl-V, or Right-click / Paste ) This will add the photo to your Facebook photos so that you can choose it for your Cover Photo.