You can say this for the Facebook developers, they certainly don’t rest on their laurels. Whatever design Facebook is currently using, rest assured they are working on an upgrade, threatening to remove the comfort the current design provides. And if you don’t think there isn’t any outcry when Facebook introduces changes, you haven’t been paying attention.

With that in mind, allow us to introduce the new design for the Facebook photo viewer. Normally, the image viewer has a black background, like so:

However, today, Jeremy Muncy took a screenshot of what appears to be a new version they are either testing or via staggered update cycle:

See a bigger image of the new layout here
While you’ll probably notice Mike McDonald’s melancholy face first — cheer up, Mike, it’s Friday — pay attention to the different layout being used. Compare it to the initial image if you need to. The old one offered a huge, black frame, but little else. The new layout, however, shows likes, comments and the background of it is semi-transparent, giving you a glimpse of the page beneath it.

Now, is this a small glance at an upcoming site-wide update/reskinning or did Jeremy simply wander into a testing cycle when he was previewing Mike’s image? Time will, of course, tell. I, for one, welcome our new Facebook photo viewer layout overlords. It certainly looks better than that ridiculous border surrounding the first example. Talk about unused whiteblack space. Of course, knowing the Facebook crowd’s natural resistance to anything that disrupts their Facebook routine, it wouldn’t be a bit surprising to see some backlash if the new layout takes hold across the Facebook network.

Does anyone want to offer a guess on how many “Change the photo viewer back” Facebook pages will pop up if the update goes live?