How to Optimize Your Photos for Myspace/Facebook

[JackRabbit]

I hope I'm posting this in the right forum. I didn't see a forum for tutorials and such so yeah.

Ok, so from my short experience in photography, I have found that my younger clients (and even some of the older ones) have requested that I make copies of the photos from the shoot for Myspace and Facebook. I am writing this tutorial because it is very good advertising for your business, since hundreds, sometimes even thousands of people view the photo and if it looks good, they will ask questions about where that person had the photo done. These techniques are especially useful for senior portraits and photos of young people and take 2 minutes to do. The directions that follow are written assuming that photoshop is used so if you use another program, you'll have to adapt them to that. These directions also assume that you have not made any funky crops and maintain the standard proportions (2:3 or 3:2) So anyways, here I go.

Directions for Myspace:
1.) Open photo in question

-If photo is shot in portrait orientation, go to step 2a, if in landscape, go to step 2b.

2a.) For portrait orientation, resize image (keyboard shortcut being CTRL+ALT+I) so that the longest side (should be the height) is 600px. Then, in the same pop up window, change the Resolution to 72 pixels/inch. Then select OK
OR
2b.) For landscape orientation, the same rules apply except the longest side will be the width and it should be re-sized to 600px. Then, in the same pop up window, change the Resolution to 72 pixels/inch. Then select OK
3.) Go to Filter>Sharpen>Smart Sharpen and set the drop down to remove Gaussian Blur. I have found that good settings for this should be around 25-35% and 0.7-1.0 radius (These settings assume that you are resizing a full size image beginning around four-thousand ish by three-thousand ish). Then select OK.
4.) Add logo/watermark/brand or whatever it is that you do for your proofs.
5.) This step is important so make sure that you do it exactly as I say. Go to File>Save as and then when the pop-up window comes up, make sure you select .PNG as the Format. If you save as a JPEG, MySpace will degrade the quality of the image, no matter what.
6.) Repeat if necessary


Directions for Facebook
1.) Open photo

-If photo is shot in portrait orientation, go to step 2a, if in landscape, go to step 2b.

2a.) For portrait orientation, resize image (keyboard shortcut being CTRL+ALT+I) so that the longest side (should be the height) is 700px. Then, in the same pop up window, change the Resolution to 72 pixels/inch. Then select OK
OR
2b.) For landscape orientation, the same rules apply except the longest side will be the width and it should be re-sized to 700px. Then, in the same pop up window, change the Resolution to 72 pixels/inch. Then select OK.
3.) Go to Filter>Sharpen>Smart Sharpen and set the drop down to remove Gaussian Blur. I have found that good settings for this should be around 25-35% and 0.7-1.0 radius (These settings assume that you are resizing a full size image beginning around four-thousand ish by three-thousand ish). Then select OK.
4.) Add logo/watermark/brand or whatever it is that you do for your proofs.
5.) Save as a JPEG and upload.

I don't know how common knowledge these techniques are but I just thought I would share in case you guys didn't know.

Jack

 

[Fedaykin]

Thanks for this, should help many.

 

[JackRabbit]

No problem.

 

[YoMoe]

Good to know. I have one question - why do you need to remove Gaussian Blur? Do you use Unsharp mask on your photos. I'm still learning how to use it, sometimes I get carried away and over sharpen images.

 

[JackRabbit]

You remove Gaussian blur because neither of the other blur removals fit in the situation. There is no lens blur and there is no motion blur (that are results of the re-sizing at least).

And yes I do use Unsharp mask sometimes but only selectively. Usually when I'm using it, I will duplicate the image layer and then use the filter and then add a layer mask to that layer and then fill the layer mask with black and then with a soft brush, go through and brush white onto the eyes and lips.