5 Steps To Creating Killer Blog Title Images…For Free!
This post is as much for me as it is for you, the reader. I started creating the header images for my posts a while ago, with the plan to start using them to build up a following on Facebook.
There is information out there about how to create the images, what sizes to use, how to post them to Facebook to get them to show up properly, etc., etc. But all of that information is scattered around.
So, I figured I create a one stop reference for myself for how I go about creating a blog header image that’s also a ready made Facebook image.
Step 1: Get a Stock Image
The first step to creating a blog post/Facebook image is to find a stock image to use as a base. This is an important step, and a really dangerous one for a blogger.
DO NOT USE AN IMAGE YOU FIND IN GOOGLE IMAGES
Most of the pictures on the internet are copyrighted works. That means that you can’t use them without express permission from the author. If you DO use a copyright photo and the author notices you will probably get a notice to immediately remove the offending image, but could face a lawsuit to boot.
Not fun.
There are, however, a couple of good ways to get completely free images for use on your blog.
Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons is, among other things, the depository for all of the images you’ll find in Wikipedia articles. The images are all in the public domain, which means that either they’re old enough that the copyright has expired or the owner has expressly stated that they have given up the copyright. Images in the commons are completely safe, but they can be pretty boring.
Flickr Creative Commons
Do not, do not, DO NOT just go to Flickr and start grabbing photos. That’s a no-no and will land you in hot water with the photographers. But there is a section of Flickr that provides completely free, safe images for use on your blog.
The pictures in the Flickr Creative Commons are all copyrighted under the Creative Commons License. There are a couple of different versions of the license, all with different restrictions on how you use the images. Make sure you read the image description and understand the type of license the creator has attached to it.
Generally, I find that hard to do on Flickr itself. My filters never seem to remember their settings from one search to another. So I shortcut it and go through Photopin. It searches the Flickr Creative Commons, but it’s far less finicky with the filters and, therefore, safer for finding creative commons images.
Commercial Stock Images
I am not an attorney, and I really don’t understand every nuance of copyright law. Lately I’ve been skipping Creative Commons photos altogether and going for free images licensed specifically for commercial use.
Does this blog qualify as commercial?
I don’t know. In the event that it someday brings in some money I suppose it could be. I figure I’m safe by choosing images that are intended for commercial use right out the gate.
A while back I stumbled onto a blog roundup post about sites that let you search free, commercial images. That post is 27 Superb Sites with Royalty Free Stock Images for Commercial Use.
Out of all of those sites I have to say that Pixabay is my favorite, by far. I’ve been using it exclusively since my triumphant return at the beginning of October.
The Image
I searched Pixabay for “painting” thinking that an artist creating a painting is sort of a good analogue for what we’re doing here, creating images for our blog.
I grabbed this one to start with:
Step 2: Get The Tools
I’ve been playing around A LOT with different tool to create my post images. I’m no graphic designer, so I’m learning on the fly with a lot of this stuff.
Two programs that I was at least mildly familiar with before I became a blogger were Inkscape and The Gimp. Both are free, open source programs, but both is good for different things.
The Gimp is a raster editing program, making it great for image manipulation. It can do nearly everything that Photoshop can, for free. Inkscape is a vector program. I used to use it a lot for diagrams for reports in school.
I have settled on a method that uses a little bit of each program. I use The Gimp to crop and tweak the photo to make it look a little more interesting (to me, anyway). Then I import it into Inkscape to put the text on. I find it’s a whole lot easier messing with text in Inkscape…
You can get these programs complete free at these sites:
Step 3: Tweak The Photo
Once you have the Gimp, launch it and open your photo.
The first step is sizing the photo to match the “proper” size for a Facebook image. There are several (read: a whole shitload) of different sizes for different images on Facebook. There IS a page on Facebook itself that defines all the different sizes, but I found this handy infographic that’s a little easier to follow:
Again: I AM NOT A GRAPHIC DESIGNER. I’m not even all that up to speed as to what all the different image categories are for. What I do know is that the most prevalent image size on that graphic seems to be the 560×292 image. I’ve also seen that image size referenced on other blogs talking about Facebook images. So that’s the size I shoot for.
The recommended image size for that image is 1200×628, which Facebook will scale down to the 560×292.
We have two choices in the Gimp: we can either scale the image or crop the image. Scaling would work if the image was exactly the same height/width ratio we’re shooting for. If you don’t know the size of the image you grabbed, just look at the title bar in the Gimp. It displays the image size after the file name.
The picture I grabbed is 1280×767, not the proper ratio. So I’m going to crop it. The crop tool in the Gimp is the icon that looks a lot like an X-acto knife. Click it, and change the tool’s settings to be a fixed size (since we know the size we want) and enter 1200×628.
Now, when you draw the cropping rectangle on the image it will lock to that size. You can move it around to get it to show the parts of the image you want, but the size will remain fixed.
Hit enter to crop the image to the new size. Note that the size in the title bar of the image updates to the cropped size.
My next step is to play with the colors. This image is actually pretty good, so I’m going to do much. But I do want to go to Colors > Curves and play with them a bit to really make them pop.
Once I get the colors where I like them I add a new layer called Gradient. Yes, I always call it Gradient. I’m anal like that.
I fill the Gradient layer with radial gradient from the center of the image to just past the edge. Then I use Colors > Invert to change the gradient from black/white to white/black. You’re image will be completely hidden by the gradient layer.
Change the layer mode to multiply. Multiply basically only allows things that are covered in pure white to show through. The end effect is a gentle fading of color toward the edges of the images.
Now I create another layer called Overlay. This one I fill with a solid color. ANY color will do. I tend to use a lot of white, but you can get a cool effect with other colors. Once the layer is filled with color I drop the opacity down into the teens. This is a fairly quick way to create a “wash out” effect. In this case I used a teal color and the opacity ended up around 12.
At this point the image is finished, so hit File > Export and export it as an image file. You should also save the Gimp file, just in case. I use the default Gimp settings when exporting, and I always work in .png.
A quick note: a PNG files preserves transparency. If there are any areas of your image that contains nothing, the PNG file will show literally nothing there. By contrast, a JPEG tends to convert transparency to white. If there’s nothing there, the JPEG will show it as white. It’s not critical for what we’re doing here, but I HAVE been burned by this before. In some applications the white actually contains some “noise” and you’ll get little dots of color where you want it solid.
Work in PNG. You’ll thank me.
Step 4: Add The Text
Once the file is exported from the Gimp, open it up in Inkscape. When the popup asks you whether to embed or link, make sure embed is checked. That way any changes to the image won’t affect your file.
Now, don’t be fooled by what you see on the screen. It LOOKS like you have the complete image, but really you have an 8.5×11 sheet of paper’s worth of the image. That’s the default Inkscape canvas size. If you’re working at the 1200×628 size this isn’t big enough to get the whole image.
Resize the canvas to fit the image by clicking File > Document Properties. Expand the Resize Page to Content...'' section of the menu and click
Resize Page to Drawing Or Selection.”
I moved the image slightly so you can see the new canvas size:
Now, all that’s left is to add text. I typically keep my images to 3 fonts MAX. More than that and they tend to look too busy. I use Liberation Sans Narrow (ALWAYS bold), Leckerli One, and Permanent Marker.
If you go out and download fonts be careful: fonts are a lot like images, a lot of them are copyrighted and are not licensed for commercial use. Check out Font Squirrel for a good selection of free, commercial fonts.
I play around with the spacing between lines, letters, and the rotation of the font for a bit until I think it looks good. This step is really subjective, all I can recommend is playing around with the various options. This is why I use Inkscape for this step, it has a TON of text editing options.
This is where we stand at this point:
I like how the text turned out, but the black gets lost in the shadows. White text would probably stand out more. To change the fill select the text you want to change, and double click the “Fill” box at the bottom of the window.
Inkscape uses RGB colors to set the fill. Black means that all the colors are zero, white means all the colors are maxed out. Crank them all to 255 to get white.
It IS better, but it still lacks something. This little trick took me a while to realize, but it totally makes the difference. Click the Stroke Style'' tab in the fill and stroke window and set the Width to 1 pixel. Then click over to the
Stroke Color” tab and set the colors to zero, for black. This creates a one pixel black border around the white text that really helps it stand out.
And the final image:
Step 5: Show Your Work
All this work really doesn’t mean much if you don’t put it out there for others to see. Use Inkscape to export the image as a bitmap (PNG is a bitmap format) and it’s ready to lead your blog posts, link from Facebook, and go to work out on the intertubez advertising your latest post.
And That’s A Wrap
This was a quick tutorial to remind myself of the process. It took me about an hour and a half to write up between taking screen shots, finding links, and actually doing the work. In reality this whole process is around 5 minutes once I find a picture I like.
It’s definitely worth it for the impact it can add to your blog and your Facebook presence.
So, how was it?
Did I miss anything?
Is there anything else on this site you’d like to see a “how-to” for?
Let me know in the comments or shoot me an email, and thanks for reading.