Framing your image and upload on Facebook while maintaining quality.

This is a basic tutorial on how to frame a picture and then upload on Facebook while maintaining quality and sharpness.

What you basically need for this to work are:

1. An image preferably shot in RAW format.
2. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom to convert the RAW into a TIFF image.
3. Adobe Photoshop CS3-CS5
4. And of course a Facebook account.

You'll need items 1 and 2 for a small, optional task. Items 3 and 4 are the things that you must have in order for this to work.

Optional

Alright you may think that shooting in RAW is unnecessary. It is better compared to JPEG actually. It is explained here on Christian Camana Photography's website. Alright, to maintain quality, this is what you can do:

1. Capture an image in RAW format.

2. Use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom to import the picture.

3. Once you have done your adjustments, export the photo as TIFF format. You can do this by right-clicking the developed photo and choose Export -> Export...

Main Process

Now, the main part. Firstly, open your previously saved TIFF image in Adobe Photoshop. I'll use the sample.tif file I saved as a sample in this tutorial. 

1. Create a new layer and leave it as "Layer 1". Click on an image for a larger view.

2. Double click on the "padlock" icon and leave it as "Layer 0".

3. Click+Hold "Layer 1" and place it below "Layer 0".

4. From the menu, choose "Image -> Canvas Size..." You'll see something like this:

Now increase the width by 2cm, and the Height by 5cm. You can increase the width and height by any value but be sure to increase the height more so that you'll have space below the picture for the Title and your Initial.

5. Click on "Layer 1". Now press the letters "D" and then "G" on your keyboard. Now click on the picture to paint "Layer 1" in black. 

6. Now click on "Layer 0" and press "V" on your keyboard to activate the Move Tool. Press Shift+UpArrow on the keyboard to move the picture upwards until you get something like this:

7. Next thing you would want to do is to put up a title and your initials. Press "T" to activate the Horizontal Type Tool. Click somewhere in the middle below the picture and start typing. A new layer will be created automatically above "Layer 0". Use the panel above the picture to control size of font, color of the text, etc (see below). When you're done, click on the "tick" button on the right. 

8. If the text is not place in a proper position, press "V" again on the keyboard and position the newly created text accordingly. 

9. When you are done positioning the text, right-click on "Layer 0" and click "Blending Options..." A pop up window will appear, see image below:

10. Select "Inner Glow" and set exactly the following settings shown below. Please note that you can control the thickness of the border around the picture by adjusting the "Size" in px. Click on the "OK" button when you are done.

11. Now that you get what you wanted, you have to flatten the image to avoid further accidental changes on the layers. Right click on "Layer 1" and choose "Flatten Image". 

12. On the menu bar, click on "Filter -> Sharpen -> Unsharp Mask..." A pop up window will appear (see below). Set the Amount to 150% and set the Radius between 0.3-0.5. You can set this higher depending on how sharp you want your image to be.

13. After you have achieved the desired outcome, it is time to save the picture into a format suitable to be displayed on Facebook. To do this, go to "File -> Save for Web & Devices..." and a pop up window will appear (see below).

Choose PNG-24 format and then adjust image width to 720px (the maximum image size supported on Facebook). Do not worry about the height. When you are done, click on Save.

14. Finally, you can upload the image that you saved earlier to Facebook. You'd probably get something like the picture below, which was saved based on the same processes we have gone through just now. 

I would like to thank Jasni Ulak & Christian Camana Photography for sharing the tips and tricks that led to the creation of this simple tutorial. Have fun uploading and sharing quality photos on Facebook!