Have you ever uploaded an image to Facebook and noticed that it doesn’t look as good on your timeline as it does on your hard drive? There’s a reason for that: Facebook saves space on its servers by compressing the photos you upload, which will affect a picture’s overall quality. This is a particularly bad problem for photos you’ve downloaded from elsewhere on the web that have likely already gone through at least one compression so far. Lifehacker, however, has provided us with a helpful list of tips for beating the Facebook compression system and posting photos that look almost as good as new.
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First, you should try to upload photos that are at least 2,048 pixels wide, which will ensure that when they post on Facebook they’ll still look decent after going through the compression process. Another trick is to enable Facebook’s “High Quality” photo album option that it’s carefully hidden away from plain sight. To do this, click “Create Photo Album” at the top of your status box. There you’ll see on option for “High Quality” on the left-hand side. Check this and it will make sure the photos you upload aren’t as compressed as they would be using standard methods.
And finally, if you’re uploading a cover photo you’ll want to make sure it’s cropped to 851 x 315 pixels so it won’t be stretched out when it goes through Facebook’s compression system.
To see tips for making sure photos you’ve uploaded from elsewhere on the web don’t get overly compressed, read Life Hacker’s full post here.
