How To Create Flex Banner In Photoshop

Expert route

This is an intermediate topic and perfect for those who feel comfortable working with the CMS and other design tools. View beginner or advanced topics instead.

Found a photo that you would like to use in the banner region of you page? Great! You do not need to use a banner image, but doing so will set your pages apart from the rest. We also only recommend using banner images on your main Index pages.

There is a vast collection of images on the UNC PhotoShelter website. You can browse for images by gallery or keyword. Use the password "Bears" to download the image.

Depending on how you found the photo, there might be two different ways to download the image:

From a gallery

Anywhere else

Regardless, you should choose the "JPEG – original size" option to get the highest-quality download.

Because page banners are so short, you want to pick an image that is simple without a very tight crop. You can view more photography tips in the Page Banners section in the Web Style Guide.

If you do not want to worry about getting document sizing correct within Photoshop, you can download the banner image template provided in the Page Banners section also in the Web Style Guide.

Getting Started

You can create a new Photoshop document that is 1600px wide by 440px tall. Make sure to set the resolution to 72 pixels/inch in the RGB Color mode.

If you're using the template, just open the file you downloaded earlier.

Next, drag and drop the image you downloaded onto the document in the Photoshop window. When you do this, you will be in Transform mode. You can resize the image by pressing SHIFT+OPTION on a Mac or SHIFT+ALT on a PC while simultaneously dragging out one of the corners (this makes it so that the image resizes proportionally to its width and height while remaining in the center of the canvas). You can then position the image being careful to completely cover the document canvas.

After this, be sure to click the checkmark icon or hit ENTER on your keyboard to place the image. You can get back to Transform mode at any time using COMMAND+T on a Mac or WINDOWS+T on a PC.

You can learn more about using the Transform tool on the Adobe website.

Saving the Image

Now that your image is placed correctly, it is important to save the image in a web format. To do so, choose File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy). This might be located elsewhere depending on your version of Photoshop. If you cannot find it, be sure to let us know.

Next, choose the "JPEG High" preset, and change the Quality to a value around 60. We have found that this keeps the file size relatively small without losing a great amount of image detail.

Using the Image

That is all we need to do in Photoshop! From here, upload the photo to your website and insert it on the page. Review the Web Support documentation about enabling banner images for more information.