Step One: Create the canvas

You have 73×73 pixels to work with. Using Photoshop (or whatever image editor you use that can save transparent PNGs), create a new document 73×73 at 72DPI.

This is what 73×73 pixels looks like:

Step Two: Choose your elements

Since I wanted to show both my niche (photography) and myself, I decided to look for some icons to work with. I found the icons I wanted in the free “Function Icon Set” package.

These are the items I chose to work with for my picture:

1. The first image is the picture I decided on for now as my “real” photo.

2. The second image is the camera icon I decided on.

3. The third image is what I will use as a frame to insert actual tiny photos into as “examples” of my work.

Think this is pretty ambitious? With a little creative sizing and positioning, we can turn all of this into a successful icon.

The next steps will show you the process I followed to create my icon. By using similar techniques and principles, you too can create a unique Twitter profile picture that will stand out to potential followers!

Step Three: Putting it together

First things first. I took my image and cropped it with rounded corners, and rotated it to a slight angle to add some flair. You can also see that I’ve placed it off to the left to make some room for my icons to fit.

Next, I added a simple white border, and added a drop shadow.

I made two of the “picture” icons and placed them at angles, very small, behind my main image. I put the camera in the front right corner.

By adding a small flash around the camera, and placing some of my own images inside the frames, I have my finished product:

Note that I saved the final image as a transparent PNG. This allows it to look good no matter what color background it is sitting on.

If you enjoyed this article, make sure to follow me on Twitter, and/or leave your comments below!

Here is the image we will work with:

To start, create a new layer. Next, select the red parts of the eyes using the circle marquee tool.

Using the fill (bucket) tool, fill the new layer with black in this area and switch the layer style to Hue. This will get rid of our red eye but will leave her looking a little freaky.

To fix this we’re going to add a little bit of color the gray-scale eyes we just created. If there is a good color sample of the general color of the eye, select it using the eyedropper. Otherwise select a good color that matches the correct eye color you need.

Create another layer and use the same selection we used for the last step to fill in your color. Change this layer style to Color. You may need to adjust the opacity.

Since her eyes still look a little strange because the red eye without color is much lighter than a normal eye would look. So we’re going to remedy this by adding one more layer and brushing in a small amount of black on the opposite side of the eye highlights for a natural fix.

And that’s about it! Now, to fix the girl in the background… but to save time, I simply cropped the picture.

Photo credits.