How to Upload High-Resolution Photos on Facebook

You spend all that time taking the perfect photo, airdropping it to your computer, and editing it until every color pops. Then you upload it to Facebook, and it looks like a blurry, pixelated shadow of its former self. This ridiculously common problem has a fix, and this guide will walk you through the exact settings and steps to upload sharp, high-resolution photos on both mobile and desktop.

Why Facebook Compresses Your Photos in the First Place

Before we get into the fixes, it helps to understand why this happens. It isn't personal, Facebook isn't trying to ruin your amazing landscape shot. It all comes down to two things: speed and storage.

Think about how many photos are uploaded to Facebook every single minute - it’s in the millions. Storing the full-resolution version of every single one would require a mind-boggling amount of server space, which costs a ton of money. More importantly for the user, high-resolution photos are large files. If every photo in your newsfeed was a massive 10 MB file, your feed would load incredibly slowly, especially on a spotty mobile connection. Your data plan would also take a huge hit.

So, to keep the platform fast and affordable, Facebook automatically compresses every image you upload. It runs them through an algorithm that shrinks the file size by reducing the image quality. The key is to prepare your photo in a specific way so Facebook's algorithm compresses it less aggressively, and to tell Facebook you'd prefer to upload in high quality whenever possible.

The Perfect Export Settings: Prepping Your Photos for Facebook

The single best way to combat Facebook's compression is to give it a file that's already optimized. If you upload a giant file straight from your camera, you're giving Facebook’s algorithm full control to shrink it however it sees fit. By resizing and saving your photo with the right settings, you take back control and give it a file that requires minimal compression.

Whether you're using Lightroom, Photoshop, Luminar, or another photo editor, follow these export settings for the best results.

1. Get the Dimensions Just Right

Resizing your image to Facebook's recommended dimensions is the most important step. If your photo is larger than these sizes, Facebook will shrink it forcefully. If it's smaller, it might look soft or pixelated.

• Standard News Feed Photos: For the best quality, resize your photo so that the longest edge is 2048 pixels. For a landscape photo, that's 2048 pixels wide. For a portrait-oriented photo, that's 2048 pixels tall. This is the sweet spot for the highest quality post.
• Facebook Cover Photos: These are notoriously tricky because they are compressed more aggressively than standard posts. The optimal size is 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels tall for desktop. Keep any text or important elements within the mobile-safe area, as a lot of a cover photo gets cropped on phones.
• Profile Pictures: Aim for at least 720 by 720 pixels. While it displays smaller, uploading a larger image ensures it looks sharp.

Stick to the 2048px rule for long-edge feed posts, and your images will look infinitely better.

2. Choose the Right File Format: JPEG vs. PNG

The file format you choose has a big impact on how the final image looks.

• Use JPEG for All Photographs: JPEGs are perfect for images with lots of colors and gradients, like photos of people, landscapes, and products. When exporting, you can control the compression level.
• Use PNG for Graphics and Logos: If your image contains text, sharp lines, or a logo, a PNG is typically a better choice. It preserves these sharp details better than a JPEG and supports transparency. However, PNG files for photographs can be massive, so only use them for graphical content.

3. Set the Correct Color Space: Always sRGB

This is a technical but very important detail that many people miss. Most web browsers, including the ones showing you Facebook, are designed to display images in the sRGB color space. Your camera might be set to capture in a wider-gamut space like Adobe RGB, which contains more colors.

If you upload an image in Adobe RGB, the colors will look washed out, muted, or just plain weird when posted on Facebook. In your export settings, always make certain that the “Color Space” is set to sRGB. This will make certain the vibrant reds and deep blues you perfected in editing are the same ones your audience sees.

4. Control the Quality Level

When you export a JPEG, most photo editors ask you to set a "Quality" level, usually a slider from 0 to 100. It can be tempting to crank this to 100, but that often creates an unnecessarily large file that Facebook will just compress more anyway.

A good middle ground for quality is somewhere between 75% and 85%. This provides an excellent balance of image detail and manageable file size. For the nerds out there, your goal is to keep the final JPEG file under 1 MB if possible. Exporting at 2048px with 80% quality usually does the trick.

How to Turn On HD Photo Uploads in Your Facebook Settings

After you’ve optimized your export settings, the final piece of the puzzle is to literally tell Facebook to prioritize quality. There’s a simple toggle hidden in the settings for this, and you need to enable it on every device you post from.

How to Enable HD Photos on the Facebook Mobile App (iOS & Android)

Most of us post from our phones, so this setting is a must-have. The process is nearly identical for both iPhone and Android devices.

1. Open the Facebook app and tap the menu icon (three horizontal lines, located at the bottom right on iOS and top right on Android).
2. Scroll down and tap on "Settings & Privacy," then tap on "Settings."
3. Scroll all the way down to the "Preferences" section and tap on "Media."
4. Under the "Photo Quality" section, you’ll see an option for "Upload HD." Make sure this toggle is switched on.

That's it! Now, the Facebook app on your phone is set to upload photos in higher quality. Remember, this doesn't stop compression completely, but it tells the algorithm to use a much higher-quality setting when it processes your images.

How to Enable HD Photos on a Desktop Computer

You need to activate this setting separately on the desktop website. If you only enable it on your phone, your computer-based uploads will still be low-quality.

1. Navigate to Facebook.com in your web browser.
2. Click on your profile picture icon in the top right corner.
3. From the dropdown menu, select "Settings & Privacy," then click on "Settings."
4. In the left-hand sidebar, click on "Media." It's usually near the bottom.
5. Similar to the mobile app, you'll see an option for "Photo upload quality." Change this setting from "Standard" to "High."

Once you’ve done this, both your mobile and desktop uploads will be treated as high priority for quality.

A Few More Pro Tips for Perfectly Sharp Photos

If you’ve done everything above, you’re already 95% of the way to uploading great-looking photos. For those who want to take it a step further, here are a couple of extra advanced tactics.

• Apply a Subtle "Output Sharpen": Many editing programs like Lightroom have an "Output Sharpening" option in the export dialog. Adding a "Low" or "Standard" amount of sharpening specifically for screen viewing can add a little bit of extra crispness that helps counteract any softening from Facebook's compression. Don't go overboard, or it will look crunchy.
• Use a "High Quality" Photo Album: When you create a new photo album on Facebook, there is a "High Quality" checkbox. Some users have found that photos uploaded into an album with this option checked retained slightly more detail than single image posts. Create a recurring “Portfolio” album and upload your best work there.
• Forget the Myths: You may have read old advice about adding a tiny one-pixel border or uploading a GIF to trick the algorithm. These hacks are outdated and largely ineffective today. Sticking to the proper export settings and enabling the HD toggle in your account is the most reliable approach.

Final Thoughts

Posting sharp, professional-looking images on Facebook doesn't require a secret trick. It just comes down to a simple, two-part strategy: first, prepare your photos with the right dimensions, color space, and file format, and second, switch on the high-quality upload setting in your account for both mobile and desktop. Get these fundamentals right, and your photos will finally look as good on Facebook as they do in your editing software.

When you've perfected your images, you want to make certain your content gets posted reliably without any last-minute surprises. While you’ve done the work to avoid Facebook’s compression, we built Postbase to eliminate the different kinds of headaches - like schedulers that fail, tools that are confusing to use, or services that can't handle modern social content like short-form video. Our focus is on rock-solid reliability, so you can schedule your perfectly prepared, high-resolution photos and know they will go live exactly when planned, every single time.