It has happened to all of us, working hard to set up photo session, shooting, and then editing whatever we were photographing that day. Once the final edits are completed and perfected, the anticipation builds to get it posted on social media. But now you think to yourself, what are the best export settings for the highest quality upload?
This blog post is going to focus on the best upload settings for Facebook. For everyone who uploads photos onto Faccebook, you always notice that the pictures look compressed and not even close to how sharp and amazing as it looked in Photoshop or Lightroom. Now, it is time to discuss and get better results when uploading to Facebook!
Exporting from Lightroom for quality on Facebook
Why does Facebook compress the photos that are uploaded to their platform? The answer, to reduce file size to save bandwidth which will keep the site speeds up.
How is this compression overcome? After testing out a bunch of export settings in Lightroom, I have finally found the best settings that I use every day for my Facebook uploads. Also, just a note to yourself… there are other ways that these results can be obtained. The following settings are what I think works the best for what I am trying to accomplish, and the easiest for my workflow.
Below is a screenshot of my export settings.
When doing my research on Facebook and what other artists were doing for compression issues, it was found that Facebook considers 2048 pixles wide high quality. So, I started to make my images 2048 pixles wide. For the PPI, I usually have this set to 120. For the Sharpening in the Lightroom export settings, I have this set to screen and standard.
To tie things up, also make sure to export your photograph in the sRGB color space, this is a very important step to get accurate colors when the photo is uploaded onto Facebook.
This about sums up my upload settings for Facebook and other social media platforms. Thank you for checking out this blog post. I hope to have another one in the near future!
In the comment box below, please ask questions if there are any. Also, if you have any recommendations on new tutorials, it would be greatly appreciated!