Questions are coming in about the new Facebook Timeline image sizes. Most are about what image sizes to use for the various page elements. Facebook is asking for some uncommon size formats, chances are you will be creatively cropping existing images or creating new ones. Here is a quick list.

1. The timeline cover photo: 851×315 pixels. Use this for your brand, highlight a product or the people that provide your service. Long-term you may want to have a designer create purpose-built images that reflect your organization.
2. Timeline updates: This is square at 404×404 pixels. A larger square image will be scaled to fit by Facebook. Likely you will have something available. Just don’t use any thing smaller, as the image will end up pixelated on the timeline.
3. Feature timeline update: 843×403 pixels. This format is tricky for photos. Most cameras produce images with a height that is 66% of the length, ie. 4×6. Facebook requires an image height 48% of it’s width. In other words it’s a wide image.

Since your timeline images will be the most frequently used, and the featured update is the trickiest, I’ll cover that in a little more detail. Below are two real estate images. The yellow dotted lines represent the crop lines to obtain 843×403 pixels. Image A is an example of how you would want to frame the subject. This way when you crop, no part of the subject is cut off. In image B there is not enough space (headroom) above and below the the crop lines, thus part of the subject will be cut off.

The yellow dotted line represents the 843x403 pixels required by Facebook to fit properly in a featured timeline post. Note the entire subject is within the crop lines (click to see full size image)

In this image there is not enough headroom to crop the image to fit the Facebook timeline without losing part of the subject. (click to see full size image)