Photoshop export settings for social media

[Nightshift Nob]

Morning all. New member here. 

So!...after virtually exhausting Google and finding absolutely zilch on the subject can anybody give me any advice on tiff export settings in Photoshop so I can share photos to Facebook? The compression is absolutely savage and just destroying everything I try. I know it can be done and see some stunning photos posted but im just not getting it. Any help greatly appreciated...

[happy-kat]

Have you tried using png or even jpg instead, they may work better as are the formats often used in mobile uploads. Tiff isn't realty web friendly.

[BCN_Sean]

Best thing to do is to try and get the image under the compression threshold of the social media.

The method I do for single images (it can be automated if you are that way inclined), first off is make a copy of the image on the computer, and then open that in Photoshop.

First off, if the image is a stack or in 16bit/32bit, flatten the stack and then convert to 8bit.

From there in to the image menu, image resize and set the longest edge to ~1920 pixels using bicubic resample.  That'll give a nice size to view on most screens. Next, filter menu, Unsharp Mask with the settings of ~120%, 0,4, Levels : 5.  After that, in to the file menu, export and save as JPEG with an image quality of somewhere between 70% and 80%.  Then close the master image without saving.

[Nightshift Nob]

On 01/03/2021 at 09:25, BCN_Sean said:

Best thing to do is to try and get the image under the compression threshold of the social media.

The method I do for single images (it can be automated if you are that way inclined), first off is make a copy of the image on the computer, and then open that in Photoshop.

First off, if the image is a stack or in 16bit/32bit, flatten the stack and then convert to 8bit.

From there in to the image menu, image resize and set the longest edge to ~1920 pixels using bicubic resample.  That'll give a nice size to view on most screens. Next, filter menu, Unsharp Mask with the settings of ~120%, 0,4, Levels : 5.  After that, in to the file menu, export and save as JPEG with an image quality of somewhere between 70% and 80%.  Then close the master image without saving.

 

On 01/03/2021 at 09:06, happy-kat said:

Have you tried using png or even jpg instead, they may work better as are the formats often used in mobile uploads. Tiff isn't realty web friendly.

Many thanks for the suggestions, ill be sure to give them a try when i get some down time...Working off a laptop probably doesnt help things either with only the very basic screen calibration options availabe. A monitor is on my eventually to do list...

[BCN_Sean]

4 hours ago, Nightshift Nob said:

 

Many thanks for the suggestions, ill be sure to give them a try when i get some down time...Working off a laptop probably doesnt help things either with only the very basic screen calibration options availabe. A monitor is on my eventually to do list...

For fine control of calibration I'd say an external calibration tool (something like a Spyder5EXPRESS or X-Rite i1) would be a better option than just relying on monitor controls; wouldn't do much in your situation where website (a la Facebook) compression is causing image problems, but over all would make image colour work a lot more precise.

Just to roughly balance a monitor there is this https://www.photofriday.com/info/calibrate

[MartinB]

In addition to the above, are you using sRGB as your colour profile?  This is the online default.

[davew]

As happy-kat said, the web isn't tiff friendly so avoiding that format would be best. Basically what happens when I download to Facebook the image I see is a small representation of the image I loaded. The original image can be viewed by opening up the image and enlarging it.

I'll give you a for instance from my last Facebook upload. That image I see on my home page is 514 / 720 pixels but I actually loaded a 1429 / 2000 pixel image. All I need do to see the original image is enlarge the 514 image and it's just as I loaded it with no reduction in quality that is obvious. I also aim to load an image at around 600kb and sRGB as Martin said and definitely 8 bit as Sean said.

No amount of calibration on your laptop or even buying a large screen will make any difference to what Facebook do as I'm sure you already know. Nice to have though.

Dave.

Edited March 13, 2021 by davew