One of the most common questions I get asked about using images on Facebook relates to users finding that their Facebook cover photos are coming out blurry or look horrible from JPG compression artifacts. It’s especially noticeable when your cover photo includes text or a logo.
When might you want to use text? Some examples are if you’re trying to add a logo or watermark to a photo, making the equivalent of a flyer or poster for an event, or maybe you just want to put some haiku on a photo. Who knows–there are endless reasons you might want to do it. But a lot of users get disappointed with how it ends up looking on the site.
There are potentially two things going on here. The first applies if you’re looking at the desktop site with a Retina (or high-density) display. Facebook’s mobile apps have long supported Retina displays. And the standard web version of the site supports it in a kind-of-sort-of way. Images in your timeline and newsfeed can be displayed as Retina, as can the photo gallery versions. But an exception is when it comes to cover photos, which still don’t display as Retina images. At some point, that’s likely to change (and probably without warning), but for now, if you look at the website version on a Retina display, you get a jarring contrast between the crisp photos on your timeline and the much-less crisp cover photo.
The second thing working against you is that to speed up its site, Facebook applies heavy JPG compression when you upload your cover photo. So the challenge here is less about something specific to Facebook itself than in working around mandatory heavy JPEG compression that Facebook applies to most JPEG images you upload and share.
They have perfectly valid reasons for applying it. Most importantly, it makes the site faster for users. It also saves on bandwidth and storage, which benefits them as well as their users. The downside is that the one-size-fits-all compression doesn’t always make every image look its best.
There used to be two things that you could try that often worked: uploading the image in the PNG-24 format and keeping the files under 99KB. And those were the things I used to recommend on this page. But Facebook is constantly tweaking its system and changing things under the hood without any warning or notification. It seems that neither of these two approaches works anymore, so I’ve updated this page accordingly.
So if neither of those tricks works now, what can you do? Well, below is a practical tip that can help. It won’t do anything about the Retina display issue (yet, anyway), and even on regular displays, it’s not a perfect solution. But it should help you get better results than if you don’t use it.
Use an Image Double the Display Size
These days, the usual reason to upload an image double the intended display element size is for Retina images. These usually apply the convention @2x to the end of the filename and are designed to be displayed when the reader’s browser and display support Retina images. But for now, the Facebook web version’s support for Retina images is incomplete.
But if you upload a cover photo that’s double the intended size, it appears you’ll get much better compression and less of the ugly JPG compression artifacts.
Here’s a practical example. They’re both generated from the same master image. Both use the same JPG quality setting (90) when creating the version that’s uploaded to Facebook. And to be clear, I’ve zoomed .in the display significantly to make the JPG artifacts much more distinct than if you were just looking at it at its native size.
The one on the left is what happens when uploading the version that’s sized perfectly for the size it will display on Facebook. The one on the right is uploading a version of the same image that’s precisely double the size. As you can see, while there are still some JPG compression artifacts when uploading the larger image, they’re much less jarring.
Out of curiosity, I tried whether uploading an even larger image made any difference. It didn’t, even using a version of the same image at its original dimensions of nearly 18,000 pixels wide.
File Size < 50KB
At one point, it used to be that if you kept images at 99KB or smaller, they wouldn’t be touched when you uploaded them to Facebook. That is, they wouldn’t go through JPG’s usual compression. That’s no longer true, but at least one user has suggested that the new limit might be 50KB.
In my tests, I couldn’t replicate that. I uploaded a JPG that was 49KB and found that it still went through even more compression. The difference isn’t as dramatic, because to get the JPG under 50KB meant using a quality setting of 61, which is pretty low. But there’s very clearly compression still being applied.
Here’s an example, again magnified several times to make the difference clearer.
The alignment of these isn’t pixel-perfect, but there’s more compression inside the white areas of the letters, as well as different artifact patterns surrounding the letters. At 100% it’s hard to tell any difference–it’s only when you zoom in that the changes become more visible.
There is also a price to pay when applying more compression to get down below 50KB. And that is that the image will take a hit in terms of image quality. That’s less than ideal when Facebook is going to apply another layer of compression when you upload the image.
JPG vs. PNG
Another old trick that is now much less effective is that there used to be a loophole in Facebook’s system when you uploaded the image in PNG format. Instead of going through the heavy JPG compression, it would keep the PNG untouched.
That’s no longer the case, as this example shows. And, in fact, it seems to now result in even worse results. Both of these images are from images that are 1656 by 630 pixels. One is a JPG (exported at a quality setting of 90), and the other is a PNG-24. As you can see, the PNG-24 image fared much worse.
So you’re better off sticking with JPG in most cases, especially for images with lots of details and tones.
A Side Benefit
A side benefit of uploading images that are double the intended display size is that the chances are better that if (or when) Facebook switches on full Retina compatibility, you might not need to go back and upload all your images again.
Recommendations for Uploading Images to Facebook
So until Facebook sneakily changes things under the hood again and doesn’t tell anyone, here are my current recommendations:
- upload high-quality JPGs that are at least 1640px wide and 720px high. It’s still going to get hit with some JPG compression, but it shouldn’t be as bad as when uploading a smaller image.
- Use photos or graphics with more defined edges rather than smooth tones.
- Use fewer colors. Images with many colors are harder to compress and will suffer more when Facebook’s compression is applied.
And because of the way JPG compression works, you’ll be better off with images that have more edges than smooth tones, and fewer colors rather than more.
Things Worth Knowing
You can also try using this trick if your Facebook profile picture isn’t coming out as sharp as you’d like.
Facebook Image FAQs
What is the ideal image size for sharp text on Facebook?
The ideal image size for sharp text on Facebook is 2048 pixels on the longest edge. This size ensures high quality while minimizing the impact of Facebook’s compression algorithm.
Is there a specific font that works best for creating sharp text on Facebook images?
Sans-serif fonts like Arial, Helvetica, and Verdana tend to work best for sharp text on Facebook images, as they are designed to be legible at small sizes and on screen displays.
Why do my text images appear blurry on Facebook?
Facebook compresses images when uploaded to save space and improve load times. This compression can cause loss of quality, making your text images look blurry or pixelated.
Can I improve the legibility of my text by using contrasting colors and backgrounds?
Yes, using contrasting colors and backgrounds can help improve the legibility of your text on Facebook images. Light text on a dark background or vice versa can make your message stand out.
Does the text size matter for maintaining sharpness on Facebook images?
Yes, using a larger font size can help maintain text sharpness on Facebook images. However, avoid making the text too large, as it may appear distorted or overpower the overall image.
Should I use a specific color mode when creating text images for Facebook?
Using the RGB color mode is recommended for creating text images for Facebook, as it is optimized for screen displays and maintains color accuracy.
Can I use text overlay tools provided by Facebook for my images?
Yes, Facebook provides built-in text overlay tools that allow you to add text directly to your images. However, these tools may not provide the same level of control and customization as dedicated image editing software.
Is there a limit to how much text I can include in my Facebook images?
While there is no specific limit to the amount of text you can include, Facebook’s 20% rule states that text should not cover more than 20% of an image’s area in order to maintain optimal engagement and avoid potential issues with ad placements.
Does anyone know how to solve this problem for FB Open Graph Images of shared links? Unfortunately, none of the methods described above works for these images.
How to upload an Avatar without color subsampling? (Not the wide cover photo but the small rectangular one.) They look horribly low resolution washed out next to comments in the small round circle. I have seen a page with red and white logo that was in PNG format and looked sharp. But no matter what I do, the avatar is recompressed to JPEG with subsampling and the colors are destroyed.
Thank you for the tips.
So in short nothing we can do, because at the end no matter what all photos will looks blurry?
It’s not a big deal for photos, but I’m sharing a flat vector artworks, and the blurry make it looks really bad.
I’m not using facebook for 10 years, back then the image compression not really brutal. lol
Thank you SOOOOO much!!! Life saver… have been going crazy back and forth with Canva on the right settings to make the video sharp. Thank you once again :D
I struggled with it too, with a banner image that has text. It looked awful whatever I tried.
Then I uploaded a .tiff . This seems much better. It seems a lot less compressed.
THANK YOU So much!! This helped. :)
thank you so much!! this is such a relief after uploading countless blurry photos at Facebook’s recommended sizing!
It worked, thank you!!
Export tiff at highest res. Open in picture viewer on a high res monitor.
Screen grab it. Take back to Photoshop apply methods like above.
If u don’t have high res monitor. Try actually lowering the resolution the screen grab. This also helps. Don’t ask me why.
For many years this has been my best method when receiving thumbnail logos from client.
Any advice specifically for timeline images? My illustrated posters never turn out well, not even with your tricks.
Hello,
I’ve have a question about Facebook shopping. I don’t get the product pictures sharp.
Is there anything that i could do?
What i already tried:
720 x 720 PX
1024 x 1024 PX
3108 × 3108 PX
All high res. And i also tried to compromise it myself to under 100 kb.
Hope you could help.
Kind regards,
Vin
Sorry, but I haven’t tested the shopping feature specifically and am not sure what else is possible beyond what you’ve already tried.
I can’t believe you actually fixed this problem for me! Amazing, for all the tips and tricks I’ve read about trying to make this work, you’ve solved it with such a simple trick! Thank you so much
Glad it worked well for you!
Amazing tips. Thank you, I’ve struggled to enhance resolution for my cover photos for a long time but doubling the image size upon exporting from Illustrator worked like a charm!
Glad it worked for you!
Thank you, it definitely helped and looked better by resizing it.
Great!
Jesus. THANK YOU. I have tried so many ‘tips’ and FB recommendations, and nothing worked. This did–thank you!
That’s great!
I was having the same problem and found your recommendation. It worked! Not as clear as I’d like but much better. I also tried one of the suggestions to go increase by 250%. That didn’t work. It was very blurry. I am going to now try an image with less color and see how that looks.
Thanks for the info!!
I’ve tried everything i can and still looks terrible on my business page. Currenly uploaded the larger size as you recommended and it looks so crappy. I wonder why my personal page banner looks excellent though, why would fb nerf business pages?
https://www.facebook.com/henrycarmonarealtor/
Anyway, if anyone has any tips, please let me know
I used 250% size and it came out almost perfectly clear. https://www.facebook.com/carlylerealtyltd/
This worked for me using Canva. Just have to check both laptop and mobile versions. Had to adjust some of text for visibility on mobile because profile pic covers part of cover photo. Thank you so much. Saved me time and looks great.
Thank you. Wasted the whole afternoon trying to get something nearly acceptable to no avail. Then saw your post and what a difference. Big thumbs up! :-)
Glad it was helpful!
Advised size for picture profile? Facebook says 170×170, but analysing a page on FB u see width and height are set to 180 in css, so double of that 360×360?
Unfortunatly, this didn’t help me with my problem. Still blurry on iPhones.
Hi I resized the image to 1640 x 630 96kb,should I have made it more kb or is this the best I can hope for.
see here https://www.facebook.com/groups/175874502469648/
That’s certainly a lot of pixelation on it. It’s worth trying to upload a version that’s both larger in dimensions and filesize–with less compression on your end–to see if you get any better results. I suspect it’s all the edges that are eating into the compression algorithm’s quota.
Hi,I will try out your solution later.Would rasterizing the text before saving do anything.
You will have to rasterize the text since Facebook only accepts formats like JPG and PNG.
I spent approximately five hours resizing an image with text (which was the issue) for a group Facebook cover photo that I serve as an administrator for after using the advice I gleaned from a multitude of articles with no success in eliminating the pixelation problem! I eventually came across this article and resized my image to the recommended 1640 X 624 pixels (which equated to 17.08 X 6.5 inches) in PowerPoint 2007 on my 17.3″ monitor, generated a JPEG and posted as the cover photo with the most fantastic results I have experienced all day! Whoop, whoop! Thank goodness, because I was almost at the point of utter frustration, although I was determined to find a fix… Thank, thank, thank you!
Correction: …recommended 1640 X 630 pixels (which equated to 17.08 X 6.5625 inches)… Thank you, again!
That improved things for me, too – thx!
THANK YOU. What a change.
Glad it helped!
Thanks for the great article! I am having the opposite issue with personal page vs. business page as others seem to mention. I took your rec to upload 1640×630, tested it on a personal page and it looked great, then uploaded it to our business page and it looks horribly pixelated. What am I doing wrong?
Thank you so much from Peru. Finally!!!
Would you still use a quality of 100% or drop that down?
Since Facebook is going to reprocess it anyway–something you have no control over–you may as well start with the highest quality setting.
Thank you for such a quick response!
Thanks soooo much! Worked like a charm, you made my day so much easier!
It won’t work for me, the image is blanked out on my MacBook, I can’t select it, I assume because it’s too large now.
THANK YOU SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH!!!!!! MY IMAGE LOOKS SUPER SHARP NOW. THANK YOU!!!!<3
Glad it was useful!
Thanks for your advise. It worked very well.
Wow! Fantastic advice. Thanks!!!
Hi, I want to make a cover picture for FB, It´s clear that it must be a 1640 x 624 pixels, but I didn’t understand the resolution it must be: 72, 144, 300 DPI? Help me please? Thanks
It doesn’t matter what resolution you use–what matters are the pixel dimensions. You can use any of those PPI settings–they’ll all have the same result in this type of use. PPI and DPI matter in some other kinds of uses but not this one.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!
THANK YOU!!!! Wow, what a difference.
Thank you!!! It worked perfectly. I´ve been looking for a solution to this problem for ages :)
David, Thank you so much, I’ve been trying and trying and this has solved my problem. Thank you.
Glad it worked for you!
Thank you. It worked GREAT. And so simple. :-)
A million thanks to you. I read endless blogs on this and your solution was the one that worked :)
Really appreciate it. Thank you!
Thanks for the info! I have a company logo which is four colored letters on a white background which I tried uploading in both PNG and JPG. I followed FB’s recommendations, made the resolution 851×315, and made sure file sizes stayed under 100KB. Didn’t matter; FB was crushing it with JPG compression and made it look god awful. I doubled the resolution, saved in JPEG100, uploaded and it looks perfect. I don’t know why they have to make life so difficult!
I literally read 10 articles on improving the quality of Facebook banners today. This is the ONLY one that actually worked. BRILLIANT! Thank you so much for the great info. I’m subscribing to your blog because I have a feeling you’re full of great information.
I’ve long struggled with a compression workaround and had already been using the practice of uploading @2X for all my images, but to no avail. However, what I have noticed is that at first glance (visiting fb page and cover photo) the image is blurry and distorted, but if you click on the cover photo, it looks crisp and clean. I also recently noticed that Facebook has been displaying all images at lo-res until you actually click on and view the image – so it’s no longer just a cover photo issue. I’m guessing this is to speed up load times on mobile.
Tip: A while back, I created a page for image testing and leave it unpublished. I use this daily to test placement and image quality on both mobile and desktop prior to handing over newly created graphics to my clients. Very useful!
Creating a “false” testing page is a really good idea! Thanks for the tip! :-)
Playing around with this today and I noticed that there is significantly less image compression when posting on a FB Page (like a business page) than when posting on a personal FB timeline. I posted an image on my personal timeline and was met with an insane amount of compression artifact. I posted the same image on my “Becka Commanda Artist” page and found a much crisper image with little to no compression. Long story short, make yourself a “Your_Name_Here Photography” page to upload your photos and then share them to your personal FB. You’ll see a huge difference in image quality.
That’s really interesting…
I’ve been uploading 1733 x641 for personal pages and 1692×635 for business pages. My files have been uploading at almost 500kb! But facebook only brought them down to about ~350kb! they are VERY sharp! I love it, I found this out and then found this article! Great job if you found this page everyone! This really really works!
*so much excitement, since I’ve been trying to figure this out for over a year.
Just browsing round the web over Christmas and came across your advice – it works! Bigger IS better! many thanks for the simple instructions too . .
This worked perfectly! Thank you!
Incredible! This worked! Thank you!
Thank you! I did manage to use the png workaround.
I just uploaded a facebook event banner jpg image (with a logo); it looked partly blurry on Facebook (especially the red part). So I opened the jpg image in Photoshop, used ‘save for web’, selected ‘png24’, ‘transparency’, ‘interlaced’ and ’embed color profile’. Uploaded that one to the Facebook event, and now it looks fine on my Retina display! Image size is 677,6K, it loads at 56,6 Kbps, and the size is 784 x 295 px.
This toke care of my compression blurry picture issues thanks very much
Works perfectly ! Thank you so much !
Thanks! That really helped.
Thank you so very much, had to figure out what was going on with FB , starting a new campaign for a client today!
Pnnngggggggg!!
Thanks!
Thanks for this info! It worked out very well for me!
Glad it was useful!
Thanks for all the tests and information David. We are busy creating FB pages for our online dating sites. So this was a valuable source for sizes, with a few tips on top of it :-)
End result is
no gradients and solid colours only in all graphics on top of photo
photo is ok, always shows up good
Reduce size to 50kb or under, and it looks ok. Still not super sharp but ok.
Seems like FB changed its compression settings again…
I was usually exporting from Photos on my iPad without any problem. Now my pics look fuzzy. And I can’t seem to find the best settings to get sharp pictures.
Any help?
Thank you for tips, it helps me a lot to anyone.
This also helped me!! Thank you!
So, let me preface this with: let’s keep the haters to a minimum, I am a senior software engineer and it is in my nature to dissect all software that I encounter. I have also been a proud and successful graphic artist for about 18 years and have created graphics, web software and brand marketing for both, small-timers and fortune 500 enterprises. I am only stating this to help provide you with some clout as to my research and solutions that I recently gained on the topic at hand. I have read thru about 500 posts/comments regarding this subject over the last 2 days and I wanted to share my experience. I believe that there has been an undocumented change for cover photos in the recent past, I’m talking within the last week to two weeks. Here’s the background…on Monday I was able to upload a 146kb jpg cover photo (saved with maximum quality setting and baseline standard format in Ps) which FB compressed slightly. Yesterday I was trying to upload the same image with one slight variation and no matter what I tried it ended up with graininess and artifacts. I began to scratch my head and then tried the original upload from Monday and all of a sudden now it won’t stop the mega compression. FYI, I have tried every other filetype that FB allows (bmp, png 8 or 24, tiff with all options set for reducing quality) AND I have also tried using the FB ‘create album’ method and checked the box for high quality upload. Nothing worked. Even tried reducing the images to < 100kb as the FB faq’s explain (ranging from 75kb-99kb), but no success. UNTIL!!…I kept playing with compression on my own to see what the compression limit of FB is set at. After a few more unsuccessful attempts starting around 90kb and working downward, I became curious at the 50kb compressed file that FB produced on most of my uploads. I downloaded one of the compressed FB uploads and tried uploading it again to see if it would reduce further and low and behold, they were NOT compressed further! After a multitude of uploads made right below that magic 50kb size, there was NO further compression. Folks, I believe the new MAX filesize limit is 50kb, reduced from their posted limit of 100. I’ve tested this over and over and had the same results. I would suggest using that as your guide. And don’t use any filetype other than jpg, it doesn’t matter anymore bc FB’s new compression software converts ALL formats to jpg regardless (I believe they did this so that all covers help them with storage and bandwidth concerns … they probably realized that png’s have escaped detection all this time). Also, avoid heavy gradients if at all possible (this includes spread drop shadows, as they are gradients too. Crisp edge shadows seem to work better and help reduce filesize) and just mentioning the official group cover image size is 748×250 pixels (this is smaller than the personal or page profile covers mentioned here (851×315 pixels). I hope this helps someone out there.
THANK YOU! I am the someone out there you helped. Much thanks from PA.
Same– I was wondering my PNG was horrible, they are almost always prestine!! :(
I tried your suggestions and was met with grainy images (working with 4K monitor and testing Facebook with an iPhone 6s in both Safari and official app). The Safari version looks crisp and perfect, and the Facebook app version looks inexplicably horrific! I found that PNG-24 (Illustrator) is far superior for banners on both, though. Still, something less than ideal is going with their banner compression algorithms on the iOS app because my file sizes are way below 50kb. Would love your input regarding this.
Thanks so much. I usually upoaded PNG’s before to get good quality but couldn’t figure out why it started coming out poorly.
Yeah, thanks for sharing. I also realized that since a while – no matter whether you upload JPG or PNG – images are converted to JPG with file sizes below 50 KB!
It does, man! Here is another someone… 1 year down the road!
You are simply beloved!
I uploaded a 93kb jpg to a facebook page, 851×315. When I downloaded it from the page, it was still 851×315 but only 74kb.
I believe facebook recently came out with a revision to cover photos (within the last few days) but it does not seem to be announced anywhere. Specifically, from the tests I have ran I cannot get compression to stop, regardless of the filesize or image type. I’ve tried every option known to us graphic designers and they always end up pixelated after upload. PNG (8 or 24), BMP or JPG (lower quality to under 100k), all between 50-99kb filesize, every time they ends up grainy. Which I find very odd because on Monday of this week I uploaded the same exact image and it did get not compressed even though it was above the 100kb limit (167kb) prior to upload. Performing the same upload today results in a distorted image every time, no matter the method. Unfortunately, it looks like your dreaded warning about png’s came true, they are now converted to jpg’s on upload as well, I’m sure that was done so that compression could occur on all covers. Note, all these attempts were made using the save for web feature in Photoshop.
Forgot to mention that FB will compress no matter the size and seems like the recent change I was mentioning, meaning that no matter the size, they will be compressed down. It seems like a bug to me that files that meet their criteria for avoiding compression (ie: < 100kb) are still being compressed. Every test I performed, even on files under 100kb were still cut by up to 50%.
I have tried everything and I still can not get to work.
Make sure your cover is the exact dimensions of 851×315 pixels. If you’re creating covers that are 720px, 920px etc… Their quality is going to be compromised when they’re resized to fit. Also, it sometimes helps to use the sharpening tool in Photoshop before saving.
I’m not sure how you’re supposed to get a PNG24 below 100kb. Either way, something seems to have changed because png or not, Facebook still horribly compresses the image.
In these days of fast internet and cheap storage, why even bother FB.
It’s easy enough to do with graphics files with color blocks and limited detail (like logos, etc). It can be harder with photos with lots of details and tones. Optimizing also helps. My guess is their rationale mostly has to do with speed, especially speed over mobile networks.
just save for web, select PNG24 and reduce quality until you get the KB down. My current is 75% and its 99KB and looks good.
Oh, wow! That was a forever problem. And that easy to fix. A million thanks!
Oh my goodness! Thank you so much for this clear info! I have searched multiple blogs for this, and I have always left scratching my head & wondering if I need to go back to school to understand this better. You were able to put something very complicated in easy to follow terms. I will definitely be bookmarking your site. thanks!
Thank you so much! I manage my church’s FB page and like to make special covers, but was always annoyed with fuzzy text. Your solution was simple and made my photo with text look so much better!
Glad it worked. If only someone could solve why it doesn’t seem to work for everyone…
This isn’t working for me at all…..is this not possible to do in Photoshop or what am I doing wrong? thanks.
Yes, it’s possible to use Photoshop. Using Save to Web to export a PNG file is best bet.
For some reason the PNG option doesn’t always work with Facebook, but it’s not clear why.
I just tried that, but it didn’t look any better. I used all of the default settings, though. Wasn’t sure if I needed to click anything specific as I was saving… I’ve been trying to figure this out forever. Whenever I add text to a photo it never looks good. Will keep trying… Thanks.
Thank you so much! This solved all my problems!
I try use Png-24, Png-8 & jpg on different size (720px, 960px & 2048px) to post on facebook. Y the pic & text still looks fuzzy? Y cant get the clear pic & text as same with my screen 100% artwork? Pls advise…thks!
I’m having the same problem, tried saving it to png 24 and png 28 but they’re still having that fuzzy thing. pls help. thanks!
you are a genius!!!! thank you so much for sharing.
A problem I ran into with Facebook recently wasn’t so much compression as over sharpening. White text on a red background developed a ‘black’ outline around the white text as it added edge contrast to the red channel.
Any clue on that neat Facebook trick?
Help! The same photo I used for my business page, which resolves crisp and clear, looks blurry and fuzzy on my personal page. It’s the SAME photo! Any thoughts?
im having this same problem
Dear Dave, I’ve already save as PNG and make it under 99kb. But it came out still fuzzy as compressed by Facebook. Do you know which step might I miss? Thank you ;)
Great info, Dave. However, I’m having trouble getting my PNG files under 99KB. How do adjust the file size to keep it under 99KB for Facebook images that don’t end up blurry? Thank you so much!
Yeah, that’s not always easy. A graphic file, like a logo, with relatively few colors will compress in PNG better than something like a photo with lots of colors. If you’re using Photoshop’s Save for Web function, you can experiment with PNG-8 and PNG-24. With PNG-8 you can try using a smaller number of colors to see how much if visually impacts the image before it becomes unacceptable.
And I would definitely recommend trying to optimize the file before you upload. Here’s more on that.
I have those settings but my cover photo logo is still blurry in the facebook app. Looks fine on a laptop and okay on the mobile version just on the internet. But the app itself seems way more blurry.
The app version might be pulling a converted JPG version. If so, unfortunately there’s not much to be done about it. You could try changing the image or graphic to something simpler than won’t suffer from such noticeable effects of compression.
Thanks for this post. I’ve been wondering why my text was fuzzy. I’m going to share your post on one of my FB business pages and recommend that my readers follow you!
Glad it’s useful!
I just tried this. Uploaded a PNG-24 (515kb), then viewed in Facebook. Opened image in new tab. Right-Click, Save As…
Image is JPG, 65kb.
It is possible that it compresses better because you are starting with a higher quality source though. Image quality seemed really good.
I don’t know why they don’t just support PNG and GIF. If they really need to, they could have a popup window saying “the image you uploaded is too large to store a PNG copy, would you like to save as a JPG?”
Stupid facebook.
Hi, Awesome work and research into this, thank you! I am a graphic designer so am not new to image resizing and photoshop optimisation techniques but im really struggling to get a png-24 at 851x315px 72ppi under 100kb. Ive even tried compressing the jpeg as much as possible before loss of quality and re-compressing that into a png-24 with promising results but still came up bigger than the 100kb/99kb suggested size limit. Any ideas?
Yes, depending on your image, that’s going to be hard to get a PNG-24 that small. If you’re using a graphic with only a handful of colors its easier, but a photo is tough. But in my testing, uploading a PNG-24 larger than 100KB still had good results and the 100KB limit tends to be if you want your JPG untouched. So it’s worth a try uploading a larger PNG-24 to see if that works for you. Or if your image is a graphic with only limited colors, a PNG-8 might also be worth a try.
Genius ! thanks heaps for this tip. worked a treat :)
This is a great article, thank you so much. One question though; it looks great when you click to show the image (I used this for my banner) but when you look at the page, the banner looks awful and grainy and not very nice. Is there something that can be done?
Hi all,
It’s amazing this text. Very detailed and helpful. I have a quite good knowledge about Facebook and upload images but I’ve never ever understand why few colors, like cyan, have strong loss. For example, https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154549332940473&set=gm.243595515850305&type=1&theater
Anyone has any idea? This image, i.e., was uploaded as PNG-24.
Regards,
Did you use sRGB colorspace? If you use one of the larger colorspaces, such as AdobeRGB or ProPhoto, colors can shift when displayed in web browsers.
thank you so much for the very clear and detailed info.. I have been tearing my hair out wondering why my cover photos looked so good in Photoshop and then terrible when uploaded to FB timeline. Nothing I googled (till now) made any sense to me.
You are a life saver !!
You’re welcome!
David, wonderful info, but I still cannot figure out why certain colors look drastically and visibly uneven surrounding the text. Usually happens with lighter colors. Thanks.
Thank you so much, I’ve been trying and trying and this has solved my problem. Thank you.
Hi again,
Further to my post last night, it seems I made a mistake and saved my FB Cover Pic 815 wide, instead of 851 x 315. Good old dyslexia :-)
The pic looked good on FB web, but terrible on FB iPad — the app was downsizing it terribly beyond the already slightly smaller size, for some reason.
So… my bad. FB is not doing anything new and nefarious. I would like to share a really helpful guide about embedded color settings for web image, from a guide I found useful:
Katie thanks for posting this link. I found changing my save to web settings were exactly what I needed to do. Everyone should read this!
Facebook appears to be converting PNG-24 to much lower Rez as of today. Just updated our FB cover to work with the new layout on our biz page, and it crunched my lovely PNG-24 cover pic down to a grainy mess somehow. File is the correct pixel size so… something seems to have changed.
I suggest to use online compressors that make a damn good job even with png files first is kraken.io then compressor.io which at the moment does not support multiple images. results can be astonishing and , it’s free.
Or something like ImageOptim, which I have a post on here.
How to save a graphic in PNG 24? All the choice I got when saving as a PNG is between
Compression –
‘None/Fast’ or Smallest/Slow’
and
Interlace –
‘None’ or ‘Interlaced’
when I save from Photoshop.
Best bet is to use Save to Web rather than straight Save.
Thanks for the info, it was a good read. However may I ask you to explain why “it’s generally not great practice to routinely use PNG-24 for photos posted on the web”?
They’re big and therefore slow down page loading (with flow on consequences in all sorts of ways, including search rankings, etc). They work well for graphics with a small number of colors (as do PNG-8), but for complex images such as the majority of photos, they become very big.
thanks very nice info
What can I do to create sharper looking Facebook Group Cover Photos on an iPad?