Facebook photo question

[TNHphoto]

Hi,

Forgive me if I'm in the wrong place, but I'm new to the forum. I have a question regarding a photo I've taken awhile back. I've tried to upload it to Facebook, and it looks good at full size when clicked on, but the thumbnail is always blurry. I've uploaded it at different sizes and the problem still occurs.

I'm posting a flickr link to the photo below. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

FYI - I always export from Lightroom at 2048x2048 (72 DPI)

IMG_1572 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Thank you!!

 

[Benco]

Resolution of 2048 is unneccesarily high for general purpose photo sharing, shouldn't cause issues with the thumbnail though. Can you post a screenshot of the problem?

 

[TCampbell]

Telling it to fit within 1024x1024 would probably be more than large enough for Facebook.

However, usually the opposite problem is true with respect to large images and their thumbnails... the smaller the image (e.g. the thumbnail) the smaller _everything_ is... including the amount of blur you can see. If an image really was soft, you can often hide that by just not displaying it in a very large size.

I've taken a look at your link to Flickr and neither the regular size and thumbnail on flickr appear to have issues with being blurry.

You might consider using your dodge & burn tools to darken the wall in the foreground (which is lighter because it was closer to the flash) and then "dodge" (which lightens) your subject's face and upper body areas. There are numerous online tutorials which show examples of doing this in Lightroom if you're not familiar with using dodge & burn tools.

 

[TNHphoto]

Yes, it's strange, Flickr looks good, Facebook does not. Maybe I will give dodge and burn a try next.

Here is a screenshot of what I'm talking about: Screen shot 2013-04-14 at 2.30.13 PM | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

 

[Josh66]

I think this may just be a case of flickr having better resizing processes than facebook - it seems to be a common problem... I.e., people always complaining that their photos look worse on facebook.

 

[TCampbell]

I'm guessing Josh is right. I've never been fond of the way Facebook handles images and eventually just gave up posting photos there (btw, I've heard rumors that they're supposed to be trying to fix this.) Now I tend to post photos only to Google+ or Flickr.

 

[Benco]

To my eye it doesn't look noticably blurrier (is that a word?) than the others in you capture, it could be that it's a low contrast image that gives it the impression of the thumbnal being blurry.

 

[KmH]

FYI - I always export from Lightroom at 2048x2048 (72 DPI)

Why always, and why always square (2048 x 2048)?
For electronic display 72 ppi (or dpi) is meaningless. For electronic display only the pixel dimensions have meaning.

If you look at Lightroom's Print > Print Job export dialog closely you'll see it's ppi, not dpi. PPI and dpi are not interchangeable terms.
The Web module output dialog doesn't even have image resolution as an output property choice.

The Library module's Facebook publishing service also has no image resolution options, just a Quality setting.

 

[pony]

Facebook is a beast! And they have changed a few times so just when I figure out a good size and good average USM setting they swicth it and stuff looks awful again.
Lately I have just been switching resolution to 70 and USM to about 500/0.2/0
It's not perfect, but it beats any other way I have found recently. Waiting for FB to do justice to photos...if they ever do. Anyhow, on my photo business I link to flicker because it just looks so much better there

 

[vintagesnaps]

It could be the image size/quality is the problem, I could never get anything to post on there except low res, low quality images. I agree with Tim, I took my photos off Facebook some time ago after changes in their Terms & Conditions (which if you haven't read, you might want to look at) - between that and the quality etc. now I only occasionally post what I consider to be a throwaway or maybe a just for fun type shot. I use my Flickr page to show photos to friends where I can control who has access to them.