From Adobe Photoshop to Facebook, the best settings explained.
This tutorial will explain all the top tips for uploading images to Facebook and retaining as much quality as possible. I'll cover the perfect dimensions, file size, file types and other tips for getting the most out of your image.
Millions of us upload our images to facebook every single day. The World's largest Social platform is a great way to share your images with friends and family. But, have you noticed that while some images (from those in the know) look fantastic, many of the images we upload can end up looking compressed and flat? Today I'm going to share a simple image editing technique that will make sure that the image that looked good on your computer, still looks great when it's shared on Facebook.
> Timing: You can apply today's technique in under '120 seconds' per image.
Why Does Facebook Compress and Lower The Quality Of My Images?
Facebook favours faster download speeds over pure image/content quality. To ensure this facebook automatically compresses and re-processes every image/photograph upload to it's platform. As a result image quality can suffer significantly. But there is a lot we can do to help minimize the damage and to ensure our images retain as much of their original quality as possible.
Facebook's 'help' sections states that they support image resolutions of 720px, 960px, or 2048px along the images longest edge. This means that if you or I upload any image with a different pixel size, it's likely that our images will be substantially degraded by Facebook's compression/size reduction algorithm.
How Much Improvement Will I See?
Take a look at the comparison image below. The image on the left was a regular upload, uploaded as a JPEG at 4000px along it's longest edge and with the 'out of camera' colour profile applied.
The image on the right was uploaded as a PNG at 2048px, with the correct colour profile applied (sRGB) and with the correct FB output sharpening applied. You can see the optimized image has more life, depth and retains all the sharpness of the original image.
Do PNG's Make A Difference?
Although, facebook doesn't make a lot of noise of its support for PNG files, it should! Facebook has, for years supported PNG file uploads which can and 'do' make a very visible difference/improvement to your images quality when displayed on facebook.
Check out our Photoshop Video Tutorial to see quickly and easily how to dramatically improve the quality of your facebook image posts.
VIDEO TUTORIAL:
Learn the best way to optimize your images in under 120 seconds with our video tutorial.
A Quick & Dirty Workflow
As always with Photoshop there is always more than one to get the job done and if you're really pushed for time and need to optimise images for facebook, there is, a quick and dirty workflow, which although won't work as well as the technique explained in the video tutorial above, will still get you almost there. Read on.
Open your selected image in Adobe Photoshop.
Select 'File' from the top right of your screen, then hover above the 'Export' option and then select 'Save for Web (legacy)'.
The 'Save for Web' dialogue box appears. (as below)
In the file type option field on the right of the dialogue box, select 'JPEG' as your file type and them tye '70' into the 'Quality' filed option.
Make sure the both 'Optimized' and 'Embed Colour Profile' are selected.
Next, make absolutely sure that the 'Convert to sRGB' option is selected.
In the 'Image Size' option field type 2048px into the W (width) field. **If your image is in portrait orientation, make sure to enter 2048px into the 'Height' option field.
Hit the 'Save' button and save your file to your chosen destination on your computer.
You are all done!
See illustration below
TIP: It is worth mentioning that the method above does miss out a few key techniques that affect your image's level of sharpness compared to the technique laid out in the video tutorial.
Good luck and have fun.
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Professional photographer and motorcycle adventurer based in Wales, United Kingdom, and founder of LIVING LENS PHOTOGRAPHY and 2 Ride The World. Simon, with his wife spent 17-years travelling the world by motorcycle, exploring some of the most remote and beautiful location on earth across 6 continents. His editorial and photographic work has been featured in publications all over the world, and his commercial clients include brands such as, BMW Motorrad, Adobe and SENA.