Is Facebook mushing up your images?

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16,766
Name
Keith
Edit My Images
No
Lately I've had people comment that some of my images are showing very pixelated and full of artifacts when displayed on FB. On my laptop they look fine, clean as the original. They also look fine on flickr to others. Are they over compressing again on there? There's no point uploading images, especially to promote your photography, if they're going to do this. I feel like pulling all my recent uploads from my page, if people are not seeing the true quality.

Something you may want to check from another pc/laptop on your fan/business pages.
 
I uploaded a 25mb jpeg this morning.

Downloaded it at my gran's and it was 256k....



You just have to use your own site and not things like FaceBook.
 
i dont put images on FB because of there T&Cs about images but they do compress them a lot unless you set it to high quality upload.

have you read the T&Cs of images on fb?

if not when you upload an image to fb you are agreeing to transfer the copyright to them and allow them to have unlimited use of that image where ever they want with out letting you know.

edit this is what it says in the t&c-

By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sub licenses of the foregoing.
 
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i dont put images on FB because of there T&Cs about images but they do compress them a lot unless you set it to high quality upload.

have you read the T&Cs of images on fb?

if not when you upload an image to fb you are agreeing to transfer the copyright to them and allow them to have unlimited use of that image where ever they want with out letting you know.

edit this is what it says in the t&c-

If they want to use one of my many mobile phone images of half-drunk pints, or chilli-laden food stuffs then so be it :LOL:
 
Just tested an upload to FB and it seems reasonable compared with other photo sharing sites.

Just done a quick test with a 1678x1120 (1021kb) original file and get the following file displayed from these photo sharing sites I have accounts with:

In order best to worst:

Deviant Art (Best) 1678x1120 (1021kb)
Flickr 1600x1068 (657kb)
Facebook 1678x1120 (206kb)
Google Plus 1416x945 (192kb)
500px (Worst) 900x601 (252kb)
 
Just tested an upload to FB and it seems reasonable compared with other photo sharing sites.

Just done a quick test with a 1678x1120 (1021kb) original file and get the following file displayed from these photo sharing sites I have accounts with:

In order best to worst:

Deviant Art (Best) 1678x1120 (1021kb)
Flickr 1600x1068 (657kb)
Facebook 1678x1120 (206kb)
Google Plus 1416x945 (192kb)
500px (Worst) 900x601 (252kb)

It's interesting to see that although 500px has a smaller pixel count, it has a larger file size than both Google Plus and Facebook. I haven't worked out any ratios, but Face book looks like the worst ratio of pixel size to bytes :thinking:
 
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I have noticed this. I don't upload anything to FB any more but other people's photos are noticeably worse than they used to be.
 
Interesting that you found 500px the worst!

I don't think file size is anything to do with it, as anywhere else I upload the same file to, the image still looks great and clean. I don't sharpen when it comes to gig shots, I did some NR, not much of that either. And actually reduced clarity [as I find for gig shots it reduces noise] - so it's not sharpening that's doing it. It seems to be more how FB compresses the file. You can still get a nice looking image at 100kb, if it's been downsized nicely. They clearly degrade the quality significantly. It doesn't seem to happen everyone, or all the time. This is only the second time someone has brought it to my attention. And comments on FB itself ... well, I don't exactly love it in general, but when you're trying to broaden your chances of gigs/jobs it can be a useful tool.

Thing is, I'm still seeing them as being fine. Can someone take a peek and tell me how they look to you?

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?...92124099.82264.345985138793081&type=1&theater

[edit] didn't see the 2 posts above.
 
Now I'm sure these ratios aren't the end all and b all of the matter, but I thought I'd work them out, being as I brought them up, and post them for others to see without having to repeat my calculations:

pixels per kilobyte

Deviant Art (Best) 1678x1120 (1021kb) = 1,879,360/1021 = 1840.7
500px 900x601 (252kb) = 540,900/252 = 2146.43
Flickr 1600x1068 (657kb) = 1,708,800/657 = 2600.91
Google Plus 1416x945 (192kb) = 1,338,120/192 = 6969.37
Facebook (Worst) 1678x1120 (206kb) = 1,879,360/206 = 9123.11

This ranking matches my expectation.
 
Always very happy with the quality of 500px images myself.
 
I'd be interested if someone can work out a nice file that works well on Facebook, I don't tend to upload anything of value to it but models I've shot with do tend to.
 
That's the thing. I shoot for musicians now and then. They re-upload the images on their own pages, if they are downsizing them first God knows how they look to others. And they're using my name.
 
Interesting that you found 500px the worst!.....

Well not so bad if you only like looking at small images, but the images at only 900 pixels wide look very small on my screen (1920 x 1080).

At least Facebook, Google Plus & Flickr seem to be able to detect the screen size and present an image that fills most of the screen.

Flickr has a 200 pic limit on the standard version which is a bit off putting, so G+ & FB win here with no set limit. G+ lets me download my original image if I wish, which facebook does not.
 
You can't upload your business photos anywhere with out the size owning them
Host yourself then yourself lol
 
I'm another who doesn't put photos on Facebook, mainly as I don't like their privacy settings (I am not convinced that only my 'friends' can see them once one of them comments on them), but also as they compress the files.

I have posted some photos from my sister in laws wedding as I was asked to and they look 'odd' IMO.

The original file size is: 4200 x 2800 pixels and 8.7Mb
Smugmug is identical in size
Facebook is: 960 x 640 pixels and 77Kb
 
checked a few images on your facebook link in your sig OP and they look okay to me for a medium size web image.


Cheers for that. I'm thinking it might have been the guy's own laptop acting up now. He messaged me to say he ran some calibration software and after that they looked fine. He had earlier sent me a screen cap, and my cover image, the sunset, was awful, pixelated and blocky. Had me worried!
 
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