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How to Upload Photos

to Facebook at the Best
Quality Possible

8.7K H O M E » POST PRODUCTION » HOW TO UPLOAD

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 a P H O T O S T O FA C E B O O K AT T H E B E S T Q U A L I T Y

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d  WILL NICHOLLS  COMMENT

h
W Facebook is a great tool for sharing your
images online with friends and family.
Many of us do this on a regular basis, but
photographers will often find their images
heavily compressed. You’ve probably
uploaded a photo that looked fine on your
computer, but once on Facebook it looked
soft and not as good!

This guide will give you all the top tips for

uploading images to Facebook and
retaining as much quality as possible. I will
cover optimum sizes, file types and other
tips for getting the most out of your
image.

Want to improve your social media

presence? Try The Photographer’s Guide
to Social Media Marketing

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 Why does Facebook Popular Tutorials

make images lose H ow to U p l o a d

Ph o to s to
quality? Fa ce b o o k a t
t h e B e st
To assist fast webpage loading times for
Q u a l i ty
its users, Facebook compresses all images
Po ss i b l e
uploaded to it. As this is done
H ow to Pr i n t
automatically, your images are subjected
Ph o to s : A
to a default compression, which more than
Ph o to g ra p h e r ’s
likely does not suit them.
Guide

Facebook supports photos that are either

720px, 960px, or 2048px on their longest W h a t’s t h e
edge. Any other sizes will have B e st C a m e ra

their dimensions reduced automatically, fo r L a n d s c a p e
Ph o to g ra p hy ?
and this inevitably results in visually poorer
images. Reducing the dimensions of an
image decreases its sharpness, especially star photo H ow to St a c k
if it is a drastic resize. stacking St a r Ph o to s to
Re d u ce N o i s e
i n Ph o to s h o p
We’ve got a free PDF for you!:  The Photographer’s
Guide to Facebook

Stay Updated

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 Reducing Compression D O N ' T M I S S T H E B E ST O F N AT U R E
TTL
in JPEG Files
Facebook will always compress your
images, there’s no getting around that. Your E-mail
However, there are some tricks to
reducing the amount of compression that SIGN ME UP

occurs.
We'll never share your details with
anyone.
The most important factor is the
dimensions of your image. Make sure you
upload your photo at exactly 2048px on
its longest edge. Facebook won’t change
the dimensions of your image, so there is a Up Next
lot less file compression required and your
how to find H ow to F i n d
photo remains sharp. If you aren’t
shutter Yo u r C a m e ra ’s
comfortable uploading such a large file,
actuations S h u tte r
then ensure that you upload a 960px Ac tu a t i o n
longest edge photo instead. Count

Once you’ve resized the image, look to see best camera W h a t’s t h e

if it appears sharp enough. Make sure you for wildlife B e st C a m e ra

photography fo r W i l d l i fe
are viewing the image at 100% size in your
Ph o to g ra p hy i n
editing software. If it looks soft having
2020?
been resized, sharpen it a little.

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 Then, use Adobe Photoshop’s “Save for H ow to Pr i n t
Web” function. Ensure that the image is Ph o to s : A

selected to compress to a JPEG file at 70% Ph o to g ra p h e r ’s

Guide
quality, whilst also converting it to
an sRGB colour profile. More detail about
using this function can be found in our
article “Preparing a Photo for Web Use“.

Does It Really Work?

Yes it does, and I was surprised at the
degree to which it improves image quality.
Here is a comparison of a photograph
uploaded at two different set of settings.

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 I’ve cropped in on the puffin that is part of
a larger photo so that you can see the
details. The sample on the left was
uploaded at an obscure size of 1096px
longest edge using a colour profile of
Adobe RGB (1998). You can see that the
colours are lost slightly, especially around
the eye. The image loses sharpness
drastically, too.

The image on the right, however, was

uploaded at 2048px longest side with an
sRGB colour profile. I also used the save
for web function, as mentioned above,
saving at 70% JPEG quality.

As you can see, the image looks a lot

better for it. The colours are stronger, and
reflect those of the original file. You can
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 see red details around the eye and beak
more clearly. The clarity and sharpness of
the image is also still there.

The Benefits of Using

PNG Files
What Facebook won’t tell you, is that you
can upload a PNG file at any size you wish
and achieve a similar effect. Don’t forget
to convert it to sRGB as well, but you
aren’t restricted on your dimensions this
way.

To do this, just save your photo as a PNG

file using your editing software. You can
also use the “Save for Web” function in
Photoshop for this by selecting PNG-24
from the drop down list.

If you want to export PNG files straight

from Lightroom, we have written a tutorial

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 that shows you how to enable that
function.

Some photographers argue that PNG

produces even better results than JPEG.
So, try it out! Facebook doesn’t mention
this, strangely enough, but it is another
great way to get your images looking good
online.

Further Reading: “How to Use Facebook

to Promote Your Photography“

It’s Never Going to Be

Perfect
One thing that you need to keep in mind is
that viewers haven’t seen your original,
high-resolution file. You, on the other hand,
have.

This means that you are of course going to

be comparing how your image looks to
how the very large, full resolution original
looks on your computer. Consequently,

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 things appear to be worse than they
actually are (most of the time).

Ensure that you are giving yourself some

tolerance for the fact that you’re uploading
a compressed image in the first place.
Think about how you look at other
photographers’ images online – they are
most likely feeling just like you about
online compression.

In reality, though, you view their images

thinking they look great. They may argue
otherwise, but on social media websites
it’s all about how the viewer perceives the
image in the first place.

Summary
So as you can see, images don’t have to
look horribly compressed as soon as you
upload them to Facebook. Just follow the
steps above, and you’ll be wishing you
knew this earlier!

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 Here is a summary of what I’ve covered, in
4 quick and easy steps.

1. Resize your image to 2048px on its

longest edge.
2. Use the “Save for Web” function, and
select 70% JPEG quality.
3. Make sure the file is converted to the
sRGB colour profile.
4. Upload it to Facebook, and make sure
you tick “high quality” if you are given the
option (usually only for uploading
albums).

Or, try using PNG files, as mentioned

above!

Remember, if you’re uploading images

online you may want to protect them.
We’ve written instructions for how to find
websites that are using your
photos without permission – make sure to
read this! It can throw up some very
interesting results.

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 Don’t forget to download our free PDF: The
Photographer’s Guide to Facebook.

Will Nicholls VISIT WILL'S WEBSITE

Will Nicholls is the founder of

Nature TTL and a professional
wildlife photographer and film-
maker from England. Having been
photographing since the age of 12,
Will's images have won a string of
awards, including the title of
"Young British Wildlife
Photographer of the Year" in 2009
from the British Wildlife
Photography Awards. Will is also
the author of the book On the Trail
of Red Squirrels.

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