What size to size images for Facebook??

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laulon

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Hi,

Obviously I really want my images whenever I post them to look a good as possible, Facebook seems to really pixelate them.

What image size, pixels and resolution are people exporting their images for FB? Previously I have been exporting my images for FB long edge 800pix, 72ppi, quality 75%. I've been told to resize to 72ppi quality 100% 720pix but as a PNG and also read to size images at 2048px on the longest side and save as PNG.

Can anyone help?

Cheers!
 
If you want your images to look "as good as possible", don't upload them to Facebook. FB applies really heavy compression to images, to reduce the demands on servers and bandwidth.

But if you must:
- JPEG is generally more suitable for photos than PNG;
- you can upload any size you like but the maximum FB will display is 2048px;
- your quality setting probably won't matter much because FB's compression will trash the finer details anyway, but I'd start with as much quality as possible so as to (hopefully) minimise the damage they do;
- PPI is a totally meaningless number and won't affect anything.
 
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Hi,

Thanks for your reply. Strange, I'm seeing lots of photographers suggesting uploading PNG files rather than Jpegs. I'm uploading images for my business Facebook page.
 
laulon said:
Hi,

Obviously I really want my images whenever I post them to look a good as possible, Facebook seems to really pixelate them.

What image size, pixels and resolution are people exporting their images for FB? Previously I have been exporting my images for FB long edge 800pix, 72ppi, quality 75%. I've been told to resize to 72ppi quality 100% 720pix but as a PNG and also read to size images at 2048px on the longest side and save as PNG.

Can anyone help?

Cheers!
Click to expand...

PPI makes no difference to images for the web.
 
laulon said:
Hi,

Thanks for your reply. Strange, I'm seeing lots of photographers suggesting uploading PNG files rather than Jpegs. I'm uploading images for my business Facebook page.
Click to expand...
There is a theory that, since PNGs are uncompressed, Facebook's aggressive compression will do less damage than if would to a JPEG which is compressed to start with.

It is plausible. We all know that JPEG compression is destructive (in the sense that some details are list forever). So starting with an image that has been compressed into a JPEG and then uncompressed is never going to be better than starting from an image which has never been compressed in the first place.

But whilst it's never going to be better, it's not obvious that it would necessarily be noticeably worse. I haven't seen any empirical evidence to support the theory. My personal view is that Facebook's compression is so heavy that it's probably going to overwhelm the difference between a PNG and a high-quality JPEG. But I don't have any evidence for that either.

You could do us all a favour by testing it. Pick an image with lots of detail. Resize to 2048 pixels or smaller, and save as both a PNG and a high quality JPEG. Upload both to Facebook; inspect; report back.
 
Hi, sorry only just getting back to this! Going to test it out. I maybe being stupid but export long edge 2048 pixels PNG and jpeg?
 
Perfect if you want to give the whole world fairly high resolution images.800px longest edge is a more realistic size
 
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Sorry sizing doesn't half confuse me! So if using PS in Image Size make the width 800 pixels?
 
laulon said:
Sorry sizing doesn't half confuse me! So if using PS in Image Size make the width 800 pixels?
Click to expand...


Yes - That's more than enough for people to see your images (you may want to also watermark)
 
Stevie- said:
I just go with 2000px along longest edge. Dpi is 360 I'm sure but that won't make any odds.
Click to expand...

Hi Steve
It's ppi (not dpi) and it means nothing when saving for viewing on screen. PPI controlsd the print size for any given image resolution and is only set at the time you hit the print button.

2000px is a big image! Easily enough to get a 20" print. In fact many cuistomers don't even care about watermarks
 
Stevie- said:
Yup, I just don't change the dpi cos sure as death and taxes the next time some body in the studio goes to export anything for a real purpose they don't check the settings for dpi.
Click to expand...

The ppi doesn't matter when exporting either Stevie. All that matters is the nuimber of pixels. You can set the ppi to 1,10, 100, 200, 300, 1000, 10000 - Nothing will change in the digital image if you export at a set number of pixels. All will be the same size.

The only difference would be where you print at those ppi values (which you won't).
 
Ok, so in PS I have now saved the same image 800 pixels wide as a png and as a jpeg and uploaded to fb. I can see no difference.
 
laulon said:
Ok, so in PS I have now saved the same image 800 pixels wide as a png and as a jpeg and uploaded to fb. I can see no difference.
Click to expand...
Did you pick an image with lots of detail, as recommended?
Can you post links to the two versions of the image?
 
But if one of the hurls goes tom order something, unchecks the 2000 along the longest edge box and punts a 30x20 off to Loxley at 72dpi it's not ideal ;) it makes no difference to images for the web so it's best (for us) not to bother adjusting dpi at all.
 
Stevie (it's ppi) :)

Printers print dots and images are made of pixels. You nave no control, over dpi. Loxley's machines print in dpi. What you send them is pixels and you tell them how many pixels to pack into each inch.

Upscaling images to get a 30x20 @ 300ppi is a bad thing to do (despite what printers will tell you). You would be surprised at the quality a 30x20 @72ppi would come back as. Check the car image and rtead their text. Loxley print for Smug. (obviously if you have more native pixels better to sen d that but this is interesting)

http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93359#minprintres


Also this video explains it very well.

i also wrote a blog article but it does need re-written.
http://www.jbdavies.co.uk/resolution/ppi-dpi/

PS - a 30x20 @ 72ppi is larger than 200px ;)
 
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laulon said:
Ok, so in PS I have now saved the same image 800 pixels wide as a png and as a jpeg and uploaded to fb. I can see no difference.
Click to expand...

I can see some differences. Looks like more sharpening on some than others. Could also be extra compression in places I suppose. Looking at their faces (around the eyes particularly), the lines in the foreground and reeds and edges on the castle.
 
laulon said:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/...073741832.260914410651564&type=1&notif_t=like
Click to expand...

Images 1 and 2 are both 800 pixels. #1 says it is JPEG, #2 says it is PNG. If I flick repeatedly from one to the other I think I might be seeing some very small changes in some areas, but I wouldn't say one is better than the other.
#3 is 720 pixels and it says it is PNG. There isn't a 720 pixel JPEG to compare it against.
#4 is 960 pixels but is says it is a 2048 pixel PNG. It isn't. And there's nothing to compare it against.
#5 and #6 both say they are 720 pixel PNGs, but they are actually both 920 pixels. I don't know why there are two of them.

Bottom line: I'd like to help, but it's awfully difficult if you can't label the images correctly.

Plus, this isn't a great image for the test. There really isn't much fine detail, except in the background where it's all out of focus anyway. If we're looking for differences in how the Facebook compression algorithms affect JPEGs and PNGs, I don't think we'd ever see them with this image.
 
Figured out 920pix long edge PNG and sharpen using the unsharp option before saving for web gives me the best result.
 
EOS_JD said:
Stevie (it's ppi) :)

Printers print dots and images are made of pixels. You nave no control, over dpi. Loxley's machines print in dpi. What you send them is pixels and you tell them how many pixels to pack into each inch.

Upscaling images to get a 30x20 @ 300ppi is a bad thing to do (despite what printers will tell you). You would be surprised at the quality a 30x20 @72ppi would come back as. Check the car image and rtead their text. Loxley print for Smug. (obviously if you have more native pixels better to sen d that but this is interesting)

http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93359#minprintres


Also this video explains it very well.

i also wrote a blog article but it does need re-written.
http://www.jbdavies.co.uk/resolution/ppi-dpi/

PS - a 30x20 @ 72ppi is larger than 200px ;)
Click to expand...


dpi/ppi I never bother changing. Stuff like that melts my brain.

We don't upscale either - I've often wondered if I should but never get round to finding out.
 
It;s actually a very very simple equation.

Print Size = Pixels / PPI

Can be re-written as PPI = Pixels/Print Size or also Pixels = Print Size x PPI
 
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