What do you mean by put in a background color of EEEEEE? Is that something to do with Photoshop?
Yes. If you are making your own avatar in an image editor, instead of using a background color of white, you'd pick the color with hex value "EEEEEE". In decimal, the RGB setting would be (238,238,238). You could also make the background area transparent.
As an example, I just created this avatar or two Qs in a blue square, in four versions:
1. Cropped. It's 66x66, not the full 75x75.
2. White background, 75x75. White is usually the default background color if you create a new image in an image editor.
3. EEEEEE background, 75x75.
4. Transparent background, 75x75.
#1 is just the size I need, but it if I change to another avatar with a different size, it'll get squashed or stretched temporarily.
#2 keeps it 75x75. If I make all of my avatars this size, they never get distorted, but people will see an ugly white border when it's in the left-side area.
#3 and #4 solve the problem by making the outer area invisible to the eye, either by setting it to match the forum's left-side background color (#3) or by making it see-through (#4).
You might be able to see the effect by dragging the images below over the left-side area as a simulation. Also, if you drag them next to the vertical borderline, you'll see whether or not the outer area of the avatar "blunks out" the vertical line as it gets close.
None of this matters if you aren't using an image editor or if you don't want to go to this much trouble to avoid temporary distortions.
