How to turn square cover art into a banner
To turn a square cover into a wide banner without cropping it, drop it on the free SoundCloud banner maker or the Social preview, choose Fit, then Blur or Color. The whole cover sits in the middle, and the sides fill with your cover blurred, or with one color you pick. Press Download. Nothing is uploaded and no account is needed.
Why a square cover doesn't just fit
A banner is far wider than it is tall: a SoundCloud banner is 2480 × 520, nearly five times as wide. Stretched across it, a square cover loses most of its top and bottom, usually your face or your title. You have two choices:
- Fill covers the whole banner and crops the top and bottom. Fine for a wide photo or an abstract cover.
- Fit keeps the whole cover and fills the empty sides with a backdrop. Best for covers with a face or a title.
Fit with Blur or Color
- Open the banner maker and drop your cover.
- Choose Fit. The cover sits whole in the middle.
- Choose the backdrop:
- Blur spreads your cover, blurred, behind it. The colors match without any work.
- Color fills the sides with one color. Pick a color from the cover, or your brand color.
- Check the cover sits inside the dashed safe zone. On SoundCloud, switch to Phone to see what a phone crops.
- Press Download.
Which banners this works for
Fit works on every wide banner: SoundCloud (2480 × 520), YouTube (2560 × 1440, with a 1546 × 423 safe area in the middle), X and Bluesky (1500 × 500), Spotify (2660 × 1140), LinkedIn (1584 × 396), Facebook (1640 × 624) and Twitch (1200 × 480). On very thin banners like Bandcamp's 975 × 180 the cover gets small, so Fill often reads better there. Every size is in Social media image sizes for musicians.
Do it by hand in Photoshop
- File > New at the banner's size, for SoundCloud 2480 × 520 pixels.
- Place your cover (File > Place Embedded) and scale it to fill the canvas from edge to edge.
- Duplicate the layer (Layer > Duplicate Layer).
- On the bottom layer, run Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur at about 60 pixels.
- Darken it by about 15%: a black layer at 15% opacity above it works.
- Scale the top layer back down so the whole cover shows, centred.
- File > Export > Export As, JPG at about 85%.
See SoundCloud banner size for the guides and the safe zone.
FAQ
How do I turn square cover art into a banner?
Drop it on the free banner maker, choose Fit, then Blur or Color for the sides, and press Download.
How do I make a banner without cropping my cover?
Use Fit instead of Fill. The whole cover stays visible in the middle, and the backdrop fills the rest of the banner.
How do I make a blurred background banner in Photoshop?
Fill the canvas with your cover, duplicate the layer, blur the bottom one with Gaussian Blur at about 60 pixels, darken it a little, and scale the top one back down so the whole cover shows.
Less admin. More music.
More guides
Line up doubles and harmonies with your lead for free: the Vocal recorder aligns each take as you record it, and Match pitch pulls a double onto the lead.
Every picture size an artist needs in 2026: SoundCloud, Spotify, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, X, Facebook, Bluesky, LinkedIn, Bandcamp, Twitch and link previews, with safe zones and file limits.
The SoundCloud banner is 2480 × 520 pixels, JPG or PNG, under 2 MB. Where SoundCloud covers it, how to frame your art with the free banner maker, and how to build one in Photoshop.