Compose for the crop - make your pictures and infographics work in Twitter's picture preview

Compose for the crop How to optimise your photos and infographics for Twitter's preview pane You've probably already seen Twitter's latest feature: the image preview pane. When you upload an image with your tweet, Twitter automatically crops a section of it and displays it as a 440 x 220 pixel preview in the Twitter stream. This means people can see your pictures, infographics and other images without having to click on a link first. There's only one slight drawback. Twitter tries to crop your image intelligently... Twitter looks for the dominant If it can't find a dominant visual element in the images element Twitter tends to crop THIS IS AWESOME! and crops that section. the middle of the picture instead. How to get Twitter to crop the area you want 2:1 RATIO THIS IS AWESOME! ARTY! ARTY! ARTY! THIS BIT - NOT SO AWESOME Compose in landscape? Twitter recomends using a Cluster your strongest visuals. If all your dominant visuals are Portrait? Don't clutter. Bright colours, grid lines, big 1024 x 512 pixel size for uploaded images, as this scales nicely to the preview window. in one area Twitter will crop there. colourful text: Twitter will 'Dominant' images include faces think this is important content and high contrast objects. and factor it into its crop decision. REMEMBER: Twitter will still REMEMBER: strong colours are REMEMBER: even a clean layout try and crop intelligently! also treated as 'dominant'! can't always control the crop! So test, test and test again before you publish Test Account@gZ4£f2AA Our new brand campaign Check out our new brand #campaign: It's Awesome! THIS IS Test Account THIS IS AWESOME! @9Z4££2AA AWESOME! Don't follow me... Follow us at #wesayitsawesome If Twitter doesn't preview If it still doesn't work try Always test your images before you tweet them. Set up a seperate Twitter account just for testing. to declutter the background, or crop your image to landscape. the right area, move the 'dominant' countent around and try again. And again. Optimising takes time and patience. But it's worth it. Comments? Feedback? y @RobertWatling1