How To Upload High Res Photos To Instagram

Picture this: you lot put your eye and soul into creating a gorgeous photo or image for your feed.

Nevertheless, when y'all go to upload your prototype assets to social media, you hit a roadblock.

The content y'all've then carefully created, collected, and curated looks terrible.

Mayhap the formatting is all wrong, the quality is off, or your images are blurry or pixelated.

It's a hot mess.

And if youneed your image quality to be superior (eg, you're a lensman or videographer), it's crucial that you sympathise how to upload high quality images on Instagram.

So instead of losing precious pixels, here's how you tin upload amazing quality photos to Instagram and avoid losing hours of difficult work.

The Lowdown on Instagram Image Quality

This vast user base is constantly uploading, viewing, and interacting with content. This is dandy news for businesses who desire to use the platform as a marketing channel. But Instagram tin can't possibly handle such jumbo amounts of data every mean solar day by uploading images in their original high-resolution format. The platform but wouldn't be able to office – or it would be painfully slow and decumbent to crashing!

So, if images are uploaded in the incorrect format, even if they're super loftier-resolution, Instagram's algorithm automatically compresses them. Information technology's the perfect solution, right? Well, no…not always.

If you don't know how to upload loftier quality images on Instagram, this automatic image compression tin transform your high quality images, compressing them to the point where they await blurry, pixelated, discolored, and even hard to recognize! If you proceed uploading poor-quality images, your engagement will plummet and your followers volition leave your page in droves.

The skillful news is that there are several ways to get around your prototype upload bug. Past understanding what the all-time image quality for Instagram is and how to upload your content so it displays correctly, you tin can ensure your posts won't plough from fab to fail quicker than information technology takes you to say the word "date".

Why Instagram Image Quality Matters

So why does Instagram even affair? Well, information technology's not but that Instagram has such impressive user numbers – although it does. Merely it's as well that Instagram has get a highly effective marketing tool for businesses all over the globe, drawing in consumers en masse and pushing them down the path to purchase at lightning speeds. In fact, it's so effective that a staggering 72% of Instagram users report having fabricated a purchase after seeing a production on the platform.

Further, Instagram is being used more and more oft as a key customer service channel for businesses, with consumers increasingly using the platform equally a way to connect with businesses. Over 200 one thousand thousand Instagram users around the globe visit one or more business profiles each day, and over 150 million people utilise Instagram Direct (Instagram's messaging feature) to communicate directly with a business each month.

Therefore, it'southward more important than ever that, as a business organization, or even as an individual wanting to build your digital footprint, you're presenting a consistent and cohesive brand presence to those consumers – instead of posting pixelated images that are barely visible.

Instagram is a primarily visual medium, which presents rich opportunities to wow consumers with high-impact visual content. But, in the same token, this means that past uploading images incorrectly, businesses could exist losing opportunities to impress and, ultimately, catechumen consumers.

Not to mention the fact that marketing teams can hands waste matter countless hours trying to fix Instagram image upload problems. So, why not do it right the get-go time?

Here's How to Upload High Quality Images on Instagram

And then, how tin y'all upload your fabulous visual content properly while achieving the best prototype quality for Instagram? Well, at that place are a few dissimilar ways you can become virtually uploading images without losing your Instagram image quality.

Ideally, you lot want an upload process that is as simple as possible. This will hateful you're not left posting at the concluding minute and you don't run the risk of formatting your image incorrectly.

Hither's our step-by-stride guide on how to upload high quality images on Instagram.

Step 1: Prepare Your Images

Unless y'all are brand new to Instagram, y'all should already have a social content strategy and content streams that make it super effortless for you to categorize your content and come up up with fresh posts regularly. If not, nosotros suggest you create one! This will help you build a regular monthly social media content calendar, allowing you to schedule your content in advance.

Either way, whether y'all're scheduling a month in accelerate or a twenty-four hour period in advance, it's of import to collect and curate your images before you post, and store them in an accessible location that can exist easily shared with your squad.

Images that are shared amid teams using email or other methods oft get compressed. This ways you can easily compromise the image's quality – and that'southward before you lot've even considered posting!

On the other manus, images taken on a DSLR camera will almost always be provided in a high-resolution quality, unless your lensman has already resized them for social media. That means that you'll definitely need to resize your images to make them smaller so they don't get compressed by Instagram.

Step 2: Sympathise Instagram Image Requirements

Set up to post your images? It pays to have a moment to check your images beforehand to ensure they're going to post correctly, so make any adjustments as needed.

Typically, there are three reasons why your images might not be displaying correctly:

Your aspect ratio is incorrect. In this case, Instagram will automatically crop your paradigm and you could lose quality
Your prototype is over 1MB and Instagram is automatically compressing it
Your epitome is likewise small-scale or is of a depression-quality prototype resolution

Essentially, the all-time resolution to use for Instagram images is the following:

For portrait photos: 1080px by 1350px. This will fill up up about of the phone's screen on mobile (on which Instagram is nigh normally used).

For foursquare photos: 1080px by 1080px.

For landscape or horizontal photos: Posting a horizontal photo is non advised because of how users hold their smartphone vertically. Just if you do happen to be posting a horizontal photo, and so the longest edge needs to be 1080px.

If your images are non the correct size, they may non display properly or, worse still, Instagram will automatically compress them. And, unless you're methodically checking each post that goes live, you're likely to miss these paradigm posting errors.

The preferred epitome formats for Instagram are JPG or JPEG files, still, you can also use PNG and BMP.

Pace three: Edit Your Images

And so, you've identified that your images are the wrong size, shape, or format. Firstly, you can beginning past resizing your image to suit your desired specifications. By resizing your images yourself prior to posting, yous eliminate the risk that Instagram will do it for you lot and ruin how your beautiful images are displayed.

If you don't have access to any scheduling tools, you can resize your image files using a unproblematic tool like Canva, or you tin use Adobe Lightroom if you are already using it for photo editing.

Canva dashboard

If yous're new to Adobe Lightroom, y'all typically demand to take a course to fully empathise all its features, but if yous're but looking to re-size your images, for now, follow the below steps:

Firstly, crop your image to a ratio of four x five
Sharpen your image using the sharpening tool. Slight adjustments are best, to begin with
Resize your image so the short edge is no more than than 1080 pixels
Export your image with a resolution of 72 pixels per inch
Double-bank check that your exported image is no more than 1MB in size

Remember, if you lot are using Canva or Lightroom, y'all still need to beware when sharing your images. If you electronic mail your images to others (or even to yourself), you lot still run the take chances of epitome compression. Instead, upload the image to Google Drive to share with others. From there, you (or others in your team) can download it on mobile, and mail the image.

Step 4: Upload via Instagram

Even if your image is already supplied in the correct format and size, y'all might want to perform a couple of adjustments to ensure the quality of your image is the best it tin can perchance be. If y'all don't have a scheduling tool, y'all'll have to do this manually. Again, you lot can use Lightroom or Canva, only if you're only making some uncomplicated adjustments, you lot can too but use Instagram itself.

When posting your image manually on Instagram, but follow the below instructions to edit:

Click the "+" symbol to offset creating a new post
Select your epitome
Striking "next"
Hit "edit"
Select the "effulgence" feature and increase this slightly using the slider tool – we recommend no more xxx% but utilise your discretion
Select the "contrast" feature and increase this very slightly – ideally no more ten%
Whorl across to the "sharpen" feature and increase the sharpness of your image. This tin can help it appear more than loftier resolution
Hit "next", add together your caption, and and so post as you normally would

Highlight of the edit text on Instagram

Highlight of the sharpen function on Instagram

Highlight of the range of sharpen on Instagram

Of grade, edits using Instagram won't exist equally advanced equally other editing tools, but if y'all're stuck at an effect and need to post something immediately, they tin can still make a noticeable improvement to your posts.

The difficulty of editing within Instagram on an ongoing basis is that you have to edit equally you mail service. That means you can't schedule your posts in advance, making information technology hard for you and your team to keep upwards with a regular posting schedule.

Footstep 5: Upload via Sked Social

Instead of buying a variety of tools to edit, share, and schedule your Instagram images, why not consolidate your software and employ one platform for everything?

The benefits of using a scheduling platform are endless, especially when it comes to uploading your images the right style. By using a scheduling tool, you lot can store, share, curate, edit, re-size, and schedule your images, all in the one system. This is well-nigh a million times easier than having 3 different systems for file storage, file sharing, and epitome editing.

Enter: Sked Social. Our platform enables you to go along all your images in the ane platform, where you can seamlessly manage and schedule your content, rather than switching platforms for dissimilar tasks. This particularly helps when social media is your key aqueduct, or when unlike members of your social or marketing team demand to interact, share, and schedule content. This is especially important when teams are working and collaborating remotely.

Flick this; y'all take social media images in about five different locations, ranging from a random file on the server to someone'south home PC. There'southward a amend solution!

Instead, Sked Social tin store all your images in the one library. It allows you to easily import and shop all your assets in the one place, with different collections for unlike brands, products, and locations. The platform tin can fifty-fifty auto-tag your images to make things even easier.

If you're running depression on content, Sked Social even has an enormous supply of free stock images that you lot can import and use, without worrying almost licensing issues!

Demand to edit your image? No problem! Our platform allows y'all to perform advanced adjustments on your images before you schedule your post! Merely click the "edit" button, make adjustments every bit needed, and schedule your post.

The Sked Social photo editor allows you to:

Crop your image to your desired size
Add together a filter
Make pocket-size adjustments like tweaking the sharpness, contrast, or brightness
Change the focus
Add together text to your paradigm
Add stickers or emojis to your image
Add overlays in varying intensities, such every bit a vintage overlay

In fact, whether you're uploading to Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, Sked Social's image editor has preset ingather sizes which give you the confidence to crop to the correct size, whether you're posting to Facebook or you want to upload an Instagram Story. This really helps when you're starting out – no more triple-checking your posting sizes for each platform.

The best part near Sked Social is that if you do happen to upload an image with the wrong specifications, the platform will present you lot with an fault message, based on the platform y'all're scheduling on. This enables y'all to go back, edit your image correctly and re-upload in the right format. Hallelujah! You'll never have a blurry paradigm once again.

Step half-dozen: Check Your Live Posts

If y'all're uploading your images on Instagram, we recommend checking your posts once they are live, to be sure they are uploaded in the right format. This will ensure you're non plagued past discoloration, blurriness, or any other prototype issue. You may as well need to cheque your image from a different device to ensure information technology uploads correctly.

When you're using a scheduling tool, the take chances of uploading an epitome incorrectly is far lower. In fact, business owners love scheduling content in advance, every bit it allows them to "set and forget" their social content so they tin can direct their attention towards customer service, driving conversions, or a range of other crucial solar day-to-day concern activities.

If you or someone else within your business is scheduling social content for the first time, it pays to check the first few posts to ensure you have added your posts correctly. But, on the whole, scheduling gives you the freedom to automate your posting and minimise the time spent on social media management.

We hope this article has helped you sympathise how to upload loftier quality images on Instagram. With any luck, soon your image uploading procedure will get second nature and you'll exist able to mail service seamlessly – without going cross-eyed trying to view your compressed images!

Remember; the sooner you lot can set upwards efficient processes and automate your social media marketing, the sooner yous can focus your efforts on nailing your social media content. In plow, yous'll start to come across increases in engagement, and consumers volition be more than likely to kickoff trickling downwards the path to purchase.

Prepare to automate your social media channels?

Sked Social allows you to collect, curate, and customize your content like a pro! Manage your accounts, gear up and forget your posts months in advance, and collaborate with your teams or different clients seamlessly.

Y'all can detect out if Sked Social is right for y'all with a free 7-day trial now!