Create a Custom Twitter Avatar without Photoshop and with No Technical Skills

There are two things you should do immediately after setting up your Twitter account; upload an avatar (photo) and write a bio. Without both of these things, few people will take you seriously.

If you can’t figure out how to add a bio to your Twitter profile read no further, because chances are you shouldn’t even be using a computer. However, it is likely that many of you who are pefectly competent at using a computer don’t have the necessary software or don’t know how to use it well enough to create an image for your avatar, and that’s why I put this tutorial together.

I’m going to assume that you at least know how to get a photo of yourself loaded onto your computer, but just in case you can’t even do that, you can still make an avatar. Just search the Net for a photo that represents who you are — maybe a lion or a piece of sushi — and use that.

Before we get to the tutorial, I thought I’d give you a few tips for creating an avatar that will stand out.

Use a photo of yourself if possible. People like to know who they’re talking to and if you’re serious about social networking you should also be serious about branding yourself as well.

Remember that the avatar will be very small so crop in tight on your face or whatever image you’re using

Adjust the sharpness and contrast beyond what would look good at a large size because by the time it’s reduced, it will look good.

Since, as I said, I realize that many people do not have a copy of Photoshop or a decent photo editing program on their computer or don’t know how to use it if they do, for the purposes of this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to use one of the online photo editing services. I’m using Snipshot but there are others.

Step 1: Use the browse tool to locate the image you want to use and open it in Snipshot’s editing window. Hey, I like Angelina Jolie, you got a problem with that?

Step 2: Select the ‘crop’ tool from the row of buttons and a bounding box will appear on top of your image.

Step 3: Hold down the shift key, which will allow you to drag the bounding box edges into any proportions you want, and click and drag one of the corners until you have a perfect square that is about the size you want to crop the image to. You’ll know if it’s a perfect square by watching the w: and h: dimensions as you drag. I recommend no smaller than 200×200 pixels because some apps, like TweetDeck, show a large copy of your image on your profile.

Step 4: Once you have the square dragged to the size you want, mouse over and and you’ll see a crosshair appear. Drag the square bounding box until it covers the exact area you want to appear in your final image. Next, either click ‘enter’ or double click the image and the software will crop the photo instantly.

Step 5: Now that you have your perfectly cropped and square avatar image you might want to edit it a little. Click on ‘adjust’ in the toolbar and a small window will pop open next to your image. You can use it to adjust the brightness, contrast and sharpness until the image looks exactly the way you want. When you’re finished, click the ‘x’ in the upper right corner to close the popup window.

Step 6: Click ’save’ in the far right of the control bar and another small window will pop open. I recommend saving the file as JPG but you can also use GIF and PNG because any of those formats are accepted by Twitter. Simply select the save option of your choice to save the file to your computer. I suggest saving it with a different name than the original document.

Step7: Now it’s time to add your new avatar to Twitter, so go to your Twitter profile page and click ‘Settings’.

Step 8: On the setting page, click ‘Picture’.

Step 9: Browse your hard drive for the avatar file you just saved and click ’save’.

Step 10: You should now see your shiny new avatar.

Step 11: Smile, you’ve done something that only a handful of rocket scientists have been able to do.

Now that you have your awesome new Twitter avatar, it’s time for an equally awesome background but that will have to wait for another post. In the meantime, visit TwitterImage.com where you can find lots of free Twitter backgrounds or have one custom made for you.

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