Facebook’s High Resolution Photo Uploads - When Does It Make Sense?
by Cody Johnson | Aug 29, 2012 | Reviews
Being a photographer, you would know that capturing pictures is only half the fun and sharing it with others is the actual enjoyment. If you are into professional digital photography, your business is the thrill. Facebook, the largest social network boasting around 850 million users, has long established a reputation for being the largest photo sharing platform at par with Flickr, Pinterest, Picasa and others.
You must have noticed that Facebook continuously makes improvements to its photo sharing service so that it provides a more appealing and simple interface to its users. Back in 2010, those of you into digital photography must have been frustrated by the 604 pixels limit of uploading pictures. It in fact had little value left for high resolution pictures that you took with your CyberShots and Nikons.
But thanks to constant reforms in Facebook digital photo sharing, you can take advantage of uploading high resolution pictures to share memories of your life’s special events. From a 20% increase to 720 pixels and later a size up of 8X to an incredible 2048 pixels, Facebook no longer ignores the fine details of your images. No more squinting at photographs when you wish to travel down your memory lane as your photos also open in a light box in the center of the screen.
Did you know that almost 250 million photos are uploaded to Facebook every day? Yes, that’s a whopping figure. Along with the ability to share high resolution images, Facebook has also revamped its photo viewer. Now you can view high resolution photographs in full size; 2,048 x 2,048 pixels.
If you were previously annoyed with the advertisements and comments tagging along with each picture, there’s good news for you. The aesthetic photo viewer lets you view quality images in full-screen view without the ads and with almost true colors. Previously you might have noticed some colors quite different from what you actually captured with your digital camera. But you will be glad to know that Facebook has improved the RGB color profile for crispy, vivid and high quality photographs.
Whether you share pictures related to special events in your life such as wedding, birthdays, and parties or custom photographic artwork, there are always issues related to photo theft. Would it wise to upload your high resolution digital photography on Facebook? The answer actually depends on different situations. Facebook in fact gives you the option of uploading your pictures either up to at a maximum resolution of 2048 pixels or at the standard low resolution of 720 pixels.
For instance, if you plan on sharing adorable pictures of your newborn bundle of joy with your family and friends, it would be safe to do so at high resolution. Just make sure you adjust the visibility of your photo albums to those friends and family you wish to share with rather than public.
On the other hand, if you are an aspiring photographer planning to push your art into business, then it is better to loosen your grip on sharing high resolution digital photography. This could also be the case if you are sharing custom artwork. It would be quite disheartening to see your work being copied by others.
But if you still insist on sharing high resolution pictures and not compromise on the picture quality, then you take certain measures to protect your images form being stolen. Watermarking your images or having some sort of signature protects your images from stolen as it is. Place them at vital locations that do not mar the aesthetics of the image but yet eliminates that chance of being stolen. Otherwise, you can still survive with a low resolution image thrown into the wild!
This is an example of a watermarked image. Your watermark doesn't need to cover the entire image, just enough to discourage people from using it without permission.
References:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Facebook-Photos-Adds-High-Resolution-Images-a-New-Uploader-158955.shtml
http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/22/facebook-photos-fullscreen/
http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2011/02/14/recent-facebook-changes-are-bad-for-professional-photographers/