Since Google has decided to follow in the footsteps of Facebook in adding a cover photo to all the profile pages, I thought I would help people out…

If you, like me, prefer to make your own cover photos in Photoshop, the way Google has set up their “cover photo selection page” is rather annoying… the place where they say “Your profile picture will show here” is not the right place, and parts of the cover photo will not be showing on the page..

So my guide to you is the following:

First of all the cover photo can only be 940 by 180 pixels. You can make the cover photo larger, but not smaller, and then choose which part of the photo you would like to show on your profile page…

I’ve made this image showing which parts of the cover photo that will be shown on the page, and which parts will be either covered by your profile picture or be covered by white space on the page (click the image to view full size):

You can download the .psd file here.

I would suggest still making a full photo (not just making the covered parts black) as you are still able to view the full photo by clicking it and then it will look a bit weird..

Lastly, if any of you have problems making a cover photo, if you are unable to or just don’t want to, but still want to have something special, you can always contact me on Twitter (@GunNut92) and I will be happy to help you out.