There’s already a good article by Nancy Messieh about turning Google+ into an online photography portfolio but I thought I could provide some specifics on how to customize that group of five photos on your Google+ profile page. To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, here is a screen capture of my Google+ profile (or you can go here to see it live): 

As Nancy mentions in her article, when you edit your profile you can upload five different photos in each of those spaces to feature your work on your page or, as you can see by my example, cut one photo into five discreet photos to appear as one panoramic image. 

First of all you will need to select an image that will work in this size format. I measured the pixels (a very handy way to do this on a Mac is to press the command (apple) key, shift, and number 4 key together to get a screen selection box that shows pixels dimensions as you drag it around – then press escape after you’ve finished measuring) and found that the overall dimensions of the composite photos including the space between each element is 810 pixels X 150 pixels. Each individual photo is 150X150 pixels and the space between them is 15 pixels.

So in Photoshop I selected a suitable image to crop to 810X150 pixels:



Then cropped it to 810X150 pixels:

Using this image in Photoshop (yes, I’m using a primitive version 4 of Photoshop Elements) I created 5 new layers by using the rectangular marquee tool to select a 150X150 pixel region of the image starting from one end of the photo. Be sure to have the info window showing so you can see the pixel dimensions of your selection.

Once you have selected your first 150X150 pixel segment of the main photo using the marquee tool, create a new layer “via cut”.
After this step, select the background layer and click on the layer visibility icon so that the new layer you’ve created is not visible. Use the marquee tool again and move over 15 pixels from the end of the previous selection (should be starting this second 150X150 pixel cut at 165 on the X axis. Repeat this process for each of the five new photos you’re creating. You will end up with a background layer plus 5 new layers.
Then select each layer one at a time, create a new 150X150 pixel blank file, select copy, then paste into the new file, name it, save it, and you’re done! You should end up with five new segments of your photo that you can upload to your profile page. You’ll also notice that these files also end up in your “scrapbook” folder on Google+.
I would love to know how you’ve been able to customize your Google+ page too! Please leave comments if this has been useful to you or if you have some other new Google+ tricks and tweaks. And I hope you’ll add me to your circles on Google+ and follow me (@kenhurstphoto) on Twitter!


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