Herself's Webtools

One of the things that makes your blog stand out is to use an original theme. If you are not yet ready to code your own theme, then you can go to the blogger dashboard, then to template and change your header image.

Once in template click on Page Elements. Do you see the section ‘blog name’ ( Header )? Click to edit that.

Once in the edit area you can upload an image from your computer to use as the header.

Well that is all easy enough. However, if you use an image that is a different size than the header image used originally in the template, you may have to go in and hack the html.

An easier option is to find out what size the original image is, and match your new header to that size. Every template is different. You can load up your blog in your browser and select ‘view source’. Start at the top; the heading image is probably near the top. Usually you’ll see a url to an image under one of the heading codes ( h1, h2 h3…). Once you see the url you can enter that in your browser. It will take you to a page with just the header image, nothing else. Drag and drop the image to your desktop.

Using GIMP or your favorite photo editor you can get the image size. Now just create your own image that size or using your photo editor adapt the one you downloaded. Remember you won’t see the change on your blog until you upload the image.

Some of the Blogger templates use these sizes:
TicTac and TicTac Blue Blogger templates use 847×240 pixel headers;
SnapShot, SnapShot Sable and SnapShot Tequila Blogger templates use 700×123 pixel;
Thisaway series uses 760×88 pixel header backgrounds;

See also:
How to create multi-layered web 2.0 headings

Before:

After:

ALWAYS, always work on a copy not the original image!

GIMP is free, open source and available for all operating systems.

If you do not have PhotoShop, or even if you do, down load a copy of GIMP. You’ll want to do some basic adjusting of your photos before you put them online. Now with GIMP you can do really cool special effects, you’ll want to download the user manual for that GUM, or wander through some tutorials.

1) The first thing I do on every photo is to adjust the color. Open up a photo in GIMP. Select Tools->Color Tools->Levels.

Tell it to auto adjust the image. If you like what it did, click OK. Most images benefit from this color adjustment. Some dramatically, some only a little. This tool takes the lightest pixel in your image and makes it white, takes the darkest and makes it black and adjusts the others accordingly. This will really sharpen up and clear up photos taken in dark or bright places.

2) Next re-size the image. No one visiting your website wants to download a 2288×1712 image that the browser will resize to 600×400, or what ever size you are displaying. Go to Image->Scale Image and adjust it down to the size you’ll be showing your visitors. There is also Image->Canvas Size. Canvas size crops the image, scale shrinks the full image.

3) Gif, jpg and png are the three formats most widely recognized on the internet. Usually jpg will be smallest, gif next and png will be huge. Png and jpg both allow you to adjust the compression level. Try saving your image at different compression levels. Some images shrink better in different formats depending on the amount of detail in a given picture. Check the smaller versions of your picture for quality. Is the image still sharp enough to show what it needs to show? Choose the least size image you can get away with.

See also:
Yet another way to clean up and sharpen your photos in Gimp
Gimp Basics: Beginning