pixelated photos in social media

[chrystinemelody]

Hello! I was hoping someone would be able to tell me why my pictures still look grainy/pixelated when i export them and update them to Facebook or instagram. I am using Lightroom CC and i shoot in raw. Thanks in advance!

[Jao vdL]

How are you doing the "update them to Facebook" step? What settings are you using in export? Note that Facebook always severely degrades image quality and instagram only allows lower resolution files and will scale anything bigger down too. One trick is to make sure your images are scaled down before uploading as this effect is worse when you send large high resolution files.

[chrystinemelody]

Thanks so much that totally makes sense! I export the pictures to my desktop and then airdrop them to my phone and upload them to social media that way. I didn't really know or pay attention to the size. what size do you recommend i save them as to make them look better on social media?

[Jao vdL · Accepted solution]

Oh you go to your phone! That adds another step that can be a problem as it will often do scaling for you. Lightroom actually has a built-in system for uploading to Facebook that works really well (see here: Publish from Lightroom to Facebook​ you want to make sure you set this export plugin up to scale your images down which is not in the instructions) and you can also easier than going through your mobile just use export to your desktop and drag them into a browser window with Facebook open. I generally use something like 1200 to 1500 pixels on the long edge (example: A Corsican sunset | Facebook)​)

For instagram I use the LR/instagram plugin (LR/Instagram - Lightroom Publish Plugin for Instagram) which also avoids having to go through your mobile. That plugin automatically scales to the right size for instagram.

[chrystinemelody]

Thank you so so much! This was extremely helpful! I'm going to try these things out tomorrow and let you know if it helps. Thanks again I really appreciate the help.

[John Waller]

Can you outline your workflow and perhaps link to an example image (Before/After)?