Tutorial Tuesday: Make your own custom iPhone Lock Screen

Welcome to Tuesday.

Several of you (17% of you...to be exact) look at my blog on your iPhone. 5% of you look at this on your Android. Aren't analytics grand? [Don't worry, I can't see who you are, how many times you visit, or even exactly where you live. So keep coming back, often.]

I've had a couple requests through the last months about using myimages as their iPhone screens or backgrounds. I think that is awesome.

But, I'm sure you would love to make your own custom background, too. So here we go--a tutorial to make your own iPhone lock screen. (Instructions are probs similar for Android, but I don't touch those....soo...

OK, here's your lock screen. Nice.

Here's the dimensions of your lock screen. Awesome.

320 pixels x 480 pixels

Now, create a document in your favorite drawing software. You can use MS Paint, Corel, Illustrator, Photoshop...whatever. Just make sure your document is 320 pixels by 480 pixels. If you have the choice, make sure your color is in RGB (that's Red-Green-Blue, typically what monitors are. CMYK, CyanMagendaYellowBlack, is mainly what printers use.) Your resolution should be about 72 dpi (dots per inch...didn't know I'd be shooting so much designer-speak at you, right?)

I'm using Illustrator, but it's a similar process in MS Paint or Adobe Products

OK, we're there. Now, the fun part. Start coloring. 

Now remember, depending on your phone you have a time bar at the top, and an unlock slide on the bottom. For an iPhone, here are the dimensions of that...

I put little guides in Illustrator where the clock and slider live, made it lots easier. 

So set up a couple guides or bars so you don't put anything fun over those areas.

Done coloring? Great. Not done yet? We'll wait.



...




Well...I'm not entirely patient so catch up with us later.

You have your beautiful picture, and you're ready to put it up semi-permenantly on your phone. Great.

Save as a jpeg into your Pictures folder. [Save As > File Type> JPEG]

If I were you, I would just start creating a folder in your Pictures as 'Backgrounds.'

Now, go into your iTunes and make sure the folder you saved your pictures into gets synced into your Phone when you connect it to your computer.

Now, sync your phone. Easy.

Go into your System Preferences on your phone. Select  'Wall Paper'

Choose your new work of art...and VOILA! Custom Lockscreen Awesome!

Again, feel free to use this!
Seriously, it's free!