Twitter has done a good job of growing an entire ecosystem of helper apps and tools, including lots of standalone programs like Tweetdeck. The service is fundamentally built around its own Web site and tools, however, and when it comes to things like tweaking a profile or modifying your settings (or reviewing what apps you have given permission to access your Twitter account via their API or application programming interface) it's really necessary to jump back onto Twitter.com to proceed.

Having said that, if you're using third-party tools you might not be aware of just how much work the company has done to make its Web interface rather surprisingly slick. It's way better than you think and if you haven't clicked on image links, replied to a post, or retweeted something from within the Twitter.com Web interface, you might be in for a big surprise. In fact, the only way I use Twitter now is from within their own Web interface.

Now, back to the profile header photo or graphic. To get there, you'll want to log in to your account at Twitter.com and click on the gear icon on the top right:

You'll want to choose "Settings" near the bottom of this menu. Note you can also customize your keyboard shortcuts if you do want to give their Web interface a shot...

Now on the left, you'll see a variety of sections you can modify or adjust:

As demonstrated, pick "Profile". Now there are two main things you can change, photo-wise, your profile photo or your header photo:

Click on "Change header", but after you've found a photo that's either at the recommended size of 1252 pixels wide by 626 pixels high, or at least something with that approx 2:1 dimension. Here's the pic I'm going to use:

I select that and when it's uploaded, Twitter shows me an editor that lets me tweak exactly how it'll appear:

The slider along the bottom is a zoom. Use it and you'll find you can also pan the larger image to pick the section you want to have visible on your profile:

Looks good! I'll click "Save" and I'm done.

But how to see how it looks? On the top left of the page, it shows your name, and just underneath it, a link "View my profile page". That's it!

Click on it and you'll see your own profile as others would see it, including the spiffy new Twitter header photograph:

Very nice. Want to see mine full size? Here I am: @DaveTaylor. While you're at it, why not click "follow" so we can stay in touch?