Image Compression Guide for Social Media Uploads
How to reduce photo and card image size before uploading to social platforms without making them look over-compressed.
Social platforms often recompress uploaded images. If you upload an image that is already too heavily compressed, the second compression pass can make it look worse.
Feed images can usually be smaller than camera originals. Start around quality 75 to 85 for photos. For text-heavy cards, inspect the text edges before publishing.
Crop and resize to the platform's intended ratio before compression. This avoids wasting file size on pixels that may be cropped away after upload.
For community posts or message sharing with strict limits, quality 60 to 70 may be acceptable. Use readability and subject clarity as the final decision criteria.
- Resize to the target platform ratio first.
- Check text clarity on card images.
- Start around quality 75 to 85 for feed photos.
- Try quality 60 to 70 for strict limits.
- Avoid overly low quality before platform recompression.