Can someone tell me once and for all how to make my photo fit the facebook timeline cover?

[Serendipity]

I know it needs to be 850x351. I have tried paint, windows photo, gimp, and picasa, and photflex. I do not want the image cropped or distorted. How do I do this? I do not know of nay program that can make it look right?

[Happy Boy]

Try One of These
http://www.freeonlinephotoeditor.com/
http://pixlr.com/
http://www.lunapic.com/editor/
http://fotoflexer.com/

[ICE]

Irfan view. It's free. You can adjust image size without changing the ratio. Remember too, 850 X 351 is maximum, it can be 850 X 345 and be fine.

[highscale145]

Unless it is larger than those dimensions and has that same aspect ratio (height vs width) it cant be done.
~
Expanding to those dimensions will make it grainier, you can't add pixels to a picture unless you want to spend a lot of time and you have great skills or a lot of money. Changing the aspect ratio will distort leaving you with only the option to crop.

Either relax your rules regarding what you will do with it or choose a different picture.

[B K]

Sorry, you can't do it if you don't want to crop it.

There is no other way to do it. Cropping is the only way you will get it to fit that aspect ratio.

It's really easy in GIMP. Select the crop tool. Click the fixed aspect ratio option in the tool options. In the box underneath type in the ratio 850:351 - click and drag over your image to crop to that aspect. Hit the Enter key to accept the crop.

That's it.

If the image is just no good for cropping, think about taking or using another one.