I’ve noticed a lot of customized Twitter pages where people put their photo and website information and/or links, phone, etc. as the background. However, the default background template for twitter often cuts off the faces and the end of information by hiding it behind the Twitter dialog box.

I customized my own background to eliminate this problem. Here’s what you can do to get the same results.

First, screen capture the twitter page using the “Print Screen” button on your keyboard.

Open your photo editing program. For this demonstration/instruction I’m using Adobe Photoshop Elements, which is an inexpensive consumer software program, often bundled with hardware. Any other graphics editing program should work if you know your way around it.

In Photoshop Elements, Click File > New from clipboard. The image will appear in the main window. My image is 1024 x 768, as that’s the setting for my browser window.

Crop the image with the crop tool to include only the “Twitter” part. Eliminate the surrounding ‘browser’ frame. Duplicate the layer so you can work on one and still be able to see the original.

Select two colors for your gradient background. Click the “gradient” box and drag your mouse over the background. Try different directions to see which works best for you.

Adjust the top transparency so you can see both layers together. Now, zoom in for more detail.

Write your information into the areas AROUND the visible Twitter box, making sure nothing will be hidden by the posting.

Size a personal photo so it fits in the corner or sidebar without cutting off when you upload the background to Twitter.

When the ‘template’ background is the way you want it, click off the ‘eyeball’ of the original background so it hides itself and doesn’t become part of the new background.

Save it as a ‘psd’ in case you want to come back and edit it later. Then, save it again as a jpg, high quality.

Go back to Twitter.com. Click Setting > Design.

Select “Change Background Image”.

Browse and upload your new custom creation as your tiled wallpaper.

Viola!

(If you like this instructional and need a video instead of text, please comment as such and I’ll think about doing a video tutorial instead.)

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