Image overlays with Online Tools

As of September 2021, Facebook is limiting the online profile frame developer tool to COVID, climate and some other causes. Until its clear how entities can become allowed to use profile frames once again, here are some steps with online tools to use a profiles frame. These instructions as also available as a PDF.

NOTE: These steps are to be done on a Laptop/Desktop browser.

Step 1 – Get your current profile image (if required)

  1. Go to https://facebook.com/me
  2. [Left] Click your Profile Photo
  1. Choose View Profile Picture
  2. [Left] Click the ellipsis (three dots) and choose Download

Step 2 – Make Image Square (if required)

It’s important that for Step 3 that your image is square. If you are not sure, use the below process anyhow as it will crop intelligently to give you a good image for an overlay.

A good online tool for image cropping is https://croppola.com/. It will intelligently crop your photos and applies a square (1:1) aspect ratio as its default.

  1. Go to https://croppola.com/
  1. Find your photo to crop. If you downloaded your Facebook profile photo you will find it in your Downloads folder. On Windows you can try https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/windowsbasics/finding-files-on-your-computer/1/
  2. Drop your photo or click to choose a photo.
  3. will intelligently crop your photos and applies a square (1:1) aspect ratio
  • In the dark gray box you can try different options like Crop size and Crop using. You can also grab the white border frame ([Left] click mouse) and adjust the crop size manually.
  • When ready, [Left] click Download this crop. Like Step 1, the file will be downloaded to your Downloads folder.

Step 3 – Download the desired profile frame

You will need to download the profile frame you wish to use.

  1. Get your profile frame created by Spotlight Media. Click on the image below for any frames Spotlight Media has created.
  1. In the popup choose the Cloud icon found at the top right of the screen to download the profile frame.
  1. The profile frame will be saved to your Downloads foler.

Step 4 – Make your image with overlay

A good online image over tool is via IMGonline – https://www.imgonline.com.ua/eng/impose-picture-on-another-picture.php

  1. Go to https://www.imgonline.com.ua/eng/impose-picture-on-another-picture.php
  2. Scroll down until you see the section as shown below.
  3. Choose your square image created in Step 2 (or other). Hint: If you used Step 2 to crop your photo it will have ‘cropped’ in the name.
  4. Choose the overlay image, i.e. profile frame, that you saved in Step 4
  5. Choose PNG, GIF, TIFF image with transparent background
  6. Set Transparency of second image: to 0% (The overlay has transparency already).
  7. For Automatic resizing of the 2nd (imposed) picture… choose enabled, but on the contrary, 1st picture will be adjusted to the size of 2nd picture
  8. Choose PNG-24 for output. The file won’t be too big so JPEG compression not of much use.
  9. Click OK.
  1. All going well you will be taken to a new page. Click Download processed image. Your image with profile overlay will be saved to your Downloads folder.

Step 5 – Upload your profile picture

  1. Go to https://facebook.com/me
  2. Click your current profile image.
  1. Click Update profile picture
  2. Click Upload Photo
  3. Find the photo you created in Step 4. Hint: It will start with the ‘imageonline’
  4. As it is cropped and square you should not need to adjust so just click Save. You can have the option to Make Temporary before you save.