# Tips/Suggestions for best Export Settings for Uploading Image to a Facebook Album



## MrsNikon (Aug 3, 2011)

I'm not currently using the Facebook Publish Services interface or any 2nd party plugins to interface between LR3 and FB.  I am exporting images to a desktop folder from LR3 and then ingesting the images via the Facebook upload.  Even if I click on "high resolution" during the upload process, the images tend to look a tad pixelated to me.  Seems that I am losing something.  They are just not as clear as when I am viewing them in LR3.  Are there any tips and or suggestions I should be following in regards to the settings in the LR3 Export Dialogue box?  Thank you in advance.  I will continue to do some searches on the web to see if I can find more information.


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## Victoria Bampton (Aug 3, 2011)

Any chance of showing us an example of one of the pixelated images?  It might offer a clue.  And what settings are you currently using in the Export dialog?


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## clee01l (Aug 3, 2011)

Also, can you post a screen shot of your Export Settings dialog for the FB files?  And A screen shot of your FB uploader panel? In the panel, you have a choice of "Standard" or High Resolution"  Upload.  Which are you choosing?


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## gregDT (Aug 4, 2011)

It's worth noting that Facebook limit the size/resolution of uploaded images. I'm not sure exactly what the limit is as I recently bailed on Facebook for Google+ and can no longer see any Facebook settings. However I'm pretty sure that what you see in Facebook may well look inferior to what you see on your PC.


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## MrsNikon (Aug 5, 2011)

Just checking back in - thanks for the replies thus far.  Sure, I can pull up some samples and yes I can do a screen shot of my export settings.  I see there is a selection during the upload process in FB for high resolution but it seems that the upload process is already out of the gate by the time you have a chance to choose a radio button for the higher resolution.  And yes Greg it is my understanding that at one time FB limited the size/resolution of the images but I think that changed.  I'll get back to the forum in a few days with my screen shot and another question on the "Image Sizing / Resize to Fit" portion of the Export dialogue box.  Thank you all.


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## MrsNikon (Aug 5, 2011)

Thank you Victoria for verifying that my 5.3mb full sized jpg from LR3 is indeed getting compressed by Facebook.  I went ahead this morning and took the 5.3MB file, uploaded to FB and selected the high resolution radio button.  I then downloaded the picture from the album and checked the size and it was 213kb.  So it is obvious that there is a limit that FB imposes.  I found the following statement in a Goggle search ...

_"The social networking site's new photo features will allow users to upload photos in a 2048-pixel resolution, instead of the traditional 720-pixel resolution. "It's enough pixels to print out a 5x7 print at 300 DPI," says Facebook Photos product manager Sam Odio."

_I'm not sure what numbers to put into LR3's "Image Sizing" in the export dialogue box that meets the 2048-pixel resolution.  I tried 2048x2048 for the LR3 export, uploaded to FB.  Downloaded from FB and once again the file size is dinky.  I think whatever one does, a high-resolution image isn't really getting uploaded and you get compression.  I think I will stick to SmugMug for sharing albums of images with family/friends.


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## MrsNikon (Aug 5, 2011)

I uploaded a 5.3mb image and clicked the high res radio button and put it in an album.  I then went ahead and downloaded the file to find that its size was onl 213kb.  I found this statement in a thread regarding FB images.

_The social networking site's new photo features will allow users to upload photos in a 2048-pixel resolution, instead of the traditional 720-pixel resolution. "It's enough pixels to print out a 5x7 print at 300 DPI," says Facebook Photos product manager Sam Odio.

_So if I need to stay within a 2048 pixel resolution what image sizing settings would I enter in the image size settings section of the LR3 export dialogue box.


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## MrsNikon (Aug 5, 2011)

I am happy to report that my efforts of trying different export settings out of LR3 panned out.  Here is what I did.  I went back to Lightroom and chose 9 images, one of which was the original one that looked all pixel-y when it was uploaded to a FB Album and I exported it using the settings in the enclosed screen shot.  The big change was the Image Sizing Dimensions of  2048 x 2048.  I just chose that figure from the information I found in an article (as stated in my previous post in italics).  So now I have 9 new images on my Desktop.  I went into Facebook and created a brand new album by selecting "New Album" under the My Albums section.  Then you have to select the photos and I selected the new 9 images from the folder on the desktop and clicked on the Open button however before selecting "Create Album" I made sure I clicked the radio button for "High Resolution".  Frankly, I cannot remember when I originally created the first allbum if indeed I had selected this radio button.

Either way, when I went to the newly created album and compared the one image in question it was obvious that the new image was better than the first one I originally uploaded.

Hope this helps some else in the future.


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## clee01l (Aug 5, 2011)

_



			5x7 print at 300 DPI," 

Click to expand...

__ translates to an image that is 1500X2100 pixels.  The author of the article is not computer literate enough to know that "2048 pixel resolution" is meaningless in that context.  A 1500X2100 pixel image is ~3.15 million pixels  I think perhaps 2048 refers to the longest dimension of the image to be uploaded. I can find nothing on FB website Help section that addresses this limit.

In the Image Sizing section of the Export dialog  Click the Resize to fit checkbox and set the "Long Edge" to 2048 and you should meet this "2048 pixel".  Ultimately FB is going to do what they want to the image they store for you. Your best option would be to ensure the long edge is at least 2048 PX and that High resolution option is checked  (you don't get much time to check it before the upload completes.

I uploaded three  \versions of the same image the longes edge was 2338 px The first used the basic uploader and the file was a 16bit tiff image, FB converted it to 8 bit JPEG and resized it to converty the 2338 px to 2048 px.  Next I tried the same image and the default uploader would not even recognise the TIFF file. I converted it to JPEG and the regular uploader set on Standard converted it to 2048 px in the long dimension.  Nexit I repeated the process using the 'High resolution' setting and got the same 2048 px wide JPEG. _


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## MrsNikon (Aug 5, 2011)

Cletus, thanks for that post.  I am going to try your image sizing settings.  Thanks again.


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## dave_bass5 (Aug 8, 2011)

Maybe im missing something but whats the benefit of uploading at higher than 720px on the long edge? Doesnt FB mess with the image quality no matter what size you upload?


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## MrsNikon (Aug 8, 2011)

Dave, Facebook (I believe it was last fall) increased the maximum allowed pixels from 720 to 2048.


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