You can't always judge a book by its cover, but you can judge a social media profile by its cover image. In this column, youll learn how to make your own cover images for Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn, including design ideas, correct sizes, and sage file format advice. This is your chance to get creative and let your personality shineafter all, an image is worth a thousand words!

The imagery you use for cover images among social media services doesnt have to be different, though each service wants slightly different pixel dimensions. While you can crop and reposition the image during the upload process, sizing it correctly ahead of time gives you more control and lets you plan for areas of the image thatll be covered by your profile picture or text overlay. Below are the currently recommended sizes for todays popular players (all sizes are in pixels), and while some services accept larger images, the sizes below work well on both desktop and mobile devices:

Facebook: Covers for personal or fan pages are 851x315. Your profile image is shown as overlay in the lower-left, with your name as a text overlay to its right. Facebook Groups have cover images of 801x250.

Twitter: Cover images are 1500x500. Your profile image is shown as overlay in the lower-left, with your name and bio appearing beneath it.

Google+: Cover images are 1080x608. Your profile image, name, and URL are shown to the left of your cover image, not as an overlay.

LinkedIn: LinkedIns cover images are 1400x425, but theyre currently for Premium (paid) accounts only. No overlays are shown atop the cover image.

A good profile image features your face or logo in full frame (left). In a full-length body shot, your face is too small to see (right); however, if the image is big enough, you can use the services zoom feature during the upload process to fix that.

Profile image sizes vary across services, too, though theyre always fairly small. A good rule of thumb is to upload a portrait-style photo of yourselfor your companys logo if its a business pageand then use the services cropping feature to make your head, neck, and shoulders fill the frame.

To make a great cover image, you need an application that lets you create a custom document size, and add more than one image to that document, as well as text. Such programs include TurboCollage ($5), Pixelmator ($30), Adobe Photoshop Elements ($100), Adobe Photoshop CC ($10/month with an Creative Cloud Photography subscription), and the like. (With enough skill you can do it in Aperture or Lightroom, but thats fodder for another storyit involves creating a custom paper size in the Print module, designing a new print template, and then using the identity plate and watermarking to add a logo and text.)

Perhaps the easiest program to use is Photoshop Elements 13; it sports a new Facebook Cover option in the Editors Create menu that makes a perfectly sized cover (and profile image) from one or more images using a variety of templates.

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How to make the best cover images for your social media accounts