What are the best export settings for Instagram?

[thescore13]

‌IM having difficulty finding a solid answer for the highest quality export setting for Instagram. Please help! Thanks.

[99jon · Accepted solution]

Try 1080 x 1080 @72 sRGB

Experiment with different quality settings between 75 & 100 as Instagram will apply standard compression.

[thescore13]

T‌hank you for the answer. Should I check "don't enlarge" and where should I set my output sharpening to?

[99jon]

I would use standard sharpening for screen. If you are not cropping your pics to a square format simply set dimensions of Short Edge 1080 and LR will automatically set the other dimension based on the original aspect ratio. In any event I think Instagram is moving away from square formats entirely.

[Jao vdL]

If you have the creative cloud version of Lightroom the simplest way to get images on instagram is to put your image in a folder that syncs with CC and then on your mobile iOS or android device use Lightroom mobile to send the image to instagram. That skips a few steps. Make sure to crop the image close to square before you do that as instagram, while it supports non-square now, still works best with close-to-square images and high aspect ratio images get lost on it as they get far less screen real estate. I don't go over 4x5 because of this.

[99jon]

There is a great video tutorial by

Laura Shoe

She demonstrates how to make square crops in bulk from LR Library.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HZ7y0hpIS4

[Laura Shoe]

I'm glad you enjoyed my video, Jon, and thank you for sharing it! The technique will work for any aspect ratio/proportions that you wish to crop to.

[vilperart]

Is Lightroom the only way (or best) way to move the picture to phone at the same quality? or are there equal alternatives?

[ManiacJoe]

The answer probably depends on how you get your pictures from the computer to the phone.

On my Win10 computer, I just use the File Explorer to drag and drop the pictures to my Android phone connected by the USB charging cable. You do not want to use any email or messaging system to move the pictures go the phone since they will negatively affect the quality of the images.

[vilper]

Can't I use Wifi Air-sharing apps? It maintains the quality of the image, I think.

[Jao vdL]

You don't have lightroom mobile you mean? you can always just export jpegs from Lightroom and send them to your mobile device using any of the cloud sharing services (dropbox, iCloud, box, etc.) and upload to instagram from there. Make sure to scale your images down to 1080 pixels on the long side. It's best to crop square before you do this. Also make sure to apply output sharpening (medium screen is likely best) and sRGB at any quality above 60. That will give you best quality. If you supply bigger files, instagram will scale them for you and lower the quality from doing it yourself.

[Jao vdL]

Doing it through Lightroom will get a dng file on your phone that you can render and edit and export from directly to instagram. One of the higher quality ways indeed. If you want to post to instagram however, you don't need to go through your phone. You can use the LR/instagram plugin inside desktop Lightroom. This will automatically get you optimal resolution and quality.

[vilper]

The problem is, I don't have Lightroom!

[JP Hess]

If you like to post to Instagram frequently there is a plug-in available that makes Instagram one of your Publish services in Lightroom. You can publish directly to Instagram. After you install the plug-in you can publish 5 images as a trial, then it costs $10 to activate it. It works very smoothly. Not sure if I should publish the link, but it's easy to find using Google.

[MATTKNILL]

Instagram Plug in  - The only issue i have found is that it automatically posts in landscape, can this be changed?

[Wesley26209258mjpr]

I would use standard sharpening for screen. If you are not cropping your pics to a square format simply set dimensions of Short Edge 1080 and LR will automatically set the other dimension based on the original aspect ratio. In any event I think Instagram is moving away from square formats entirely.

[Ecti26173340hgp3]

I'm having trouble locating a reliable response to the question of what Instagram's best quality export setting is image serum. Please assist! Thanks.

[dj_paige]

I have no trouble with Instagram quality. I export from LrC with the quality slider at 75 and the Image sizing set to 1600 pixels on the long edge.