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Help high quality s4 pics become extremely low quality instagram pics

Spoon19xx

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May 10, 2013
3
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Uploads to instagram..... yes I have both boxes unchecked

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This is Not just an ig problem I downloaded a app called resize and everytime I resized my beautiful 13mp photo to a 612x612 version it became became pixelated inferior detailed crap looks like I took the pic with a old razr flip phone camera this issue needs to be addressed immediately! This sucks for us to have these powerful cameras and only we can see them high detailed
 
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This is Not just an ig problem I downloaded a app called resize and everytime I resized my beautiful 13mp photo to a 612x612 version it became became pixelated inferior detailed crap looks like I took the pic with a old razr flip phone camera this issue needs to be addressed immediately! This sucks for us to have these powerful cameras and only we can see them high detailed


Try Pixlr Express, it's pretty good at resizing photos to whatever size you want without doing too much, if any, distortion to the photo.
 
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I honestly don't think anything is wrong with your actual picture but IG itself doesn't show them in high res. They already fixed the high res issue where it wouldn't upload your picture on using the S4. I notice this on IG period that images even of others that I am looking at that I know who takes high res photos aren't looking high res. When I look at that same image on an iPhone or my iPod it looks just fine on IG.

Also, I have a Black Mist Sprint Galaxy S4 for bid. Currently and only at $300 so far. Excellent condition. Lovely phone but it's not for me.. Check my signature.
 
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  1. 1. Open the pic in your s4 gallery and crop it in a perfect square (as you want it to appear on insta).
  2. 2. Upload the cropped pic to DropBox (free useful app)
  3. 3. Open the pic in DropBox > click 'Export' > click 'Save to SD Card'
  4. 4. Go to your s4 gallery and open the pic that you just exported (it will NOT be in the 'Camera' file -- it'll be in a separate one)
  5. 5. Upload it to instagram but DO NOT CROP IT EVEN MORE. AT ALL.The pic shoulda been a PERFECT square.
  6. 6. Blaow

If this didn't work, you did something wrong.
 
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  1. 1. Open the pic in your s4 gallery and crop it in a perfect square (as you want it to appear on insta).
  2. 2. Upload the cropped pic to DropBox (free useful app)
  3. 3. Open the pic in DropBox > click 'Export' > click 'Save to SD Card'
  4. 4. Go to your s4 gallery and open the pic that you just exported (it will NOT be in the 'Camera' file -- it'll be in a separate one)
  5. 5. Upload it to instagram but DO NOT CROP IT EVEN MORE. AT ALL.The pic shoulda been a PERFECT square.
  6. 6. Blaow

If this didn't work, you did something wrong.

Couldn't you just set your camera to save to the SD card to begin with and skip a few steps? Also, the built-in "My Files" app can move your photos from the internal memory to the SD card anytime, without the need for your Dropbox step (although, it's a great app, people should get it).

Just seems like I could cut out 3-4 of your steps up there.
 
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Guys - do you know what a JPEG is? It is a compressed format of image. Every time you edit it, it get unpacked, data is change and it is repacked. There is of course loss of information in the process.

And those who want 612x612 look the same as 13MP image, please start reading about resolution and detail as there is NO PHONE or DSLR or ANY OTHER CAMERA in this universe that will prevent JPEGS from degrading when changing resolution.

You are simply noticing it now, because S4s camera at 13MPx delivers enough details to notice the degradation.
 
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Guys - do you know what a JPEG is? It is a compressed format of image. Every time you edit it, it get unpacked, data is change and it is repacked. There is of course loss of information in the process.

And those who want 612x612 look the same as 13MP image, please start reading about resolution and detail as there is NO PHONE or DSLR or ANY OTHER CAMERA in this universe that will prevent JPEGS from degrading when changing resolution.

You are simply noticing it now, because S4s camera at 13MPx delivers enough details to notice the degradation.

This is exactly right. If you were to take a picture with a lower MP count like an iPhone, then you wouldn't notice it. I have a S4 as my secondary phone and I notice this. But if I put a nice looking photo on my phone that wasn't taken by S4 and upload it to IG, then it looks just fine. It's IG's fault for forcing photos to be cropped anyways which I never understood for a photo sharing app.
 
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Guys - do you know what a JPEG is? It is a compressed format of image. Every time you edit it, it get unpacked, data is change and it is repacked. There is of course loss of information in the process.

And those who want 612x612 look the same as 13MP image, please start reading about resolution and detail as there is NO PHONE or DSLR or ANY OTHER CAMERA in this universe that will prevent JPEGS from degrading when changing resolution.

You are simply noticing it now, because S4s camera at 13MPx delivers enough details to notice the degradation.

This is exactly right. If you were to take a picture with a lower MP count like an iPhone, then you wouldn't notice it. I have a S4 as my secondary phone and I notice this. But if I put a nice looking photo on my phone that wasn't taken by S4 and upload it to IG, then it looks just fine. It's IG's fault for forcing photos to be cropped anyways which I never understood for a photo sharing app.

If this is the case (which completely makes sense), then why when I switch my camera to 8mp (same as the iphone) the upload still comes out lower quality compared to iphone users? :thinking:

Furthermore, when I upload a photo from my S4 taken with my digital camera 12mp (transferred file to the phone) the quality seems fine.
 
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I don't know. Maybe my eyes are "made in China". The photos I upload seem quite
fine to me. I have one of my kid, waking him up, taken with strong, morning light
coming through his window:

uYnHtum.png


And this one, when we were having drinks, in a really dark place, 1am. Normally the
photos taken in a low light look like water paint, made of tiny smudgy pixels, yet they
look really good on my phone. Far less impressive on the computer when enlarged.

LJMVe9D.png
 
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Your right. Those do look very good (those were taken with the SGS4 correct? what app do you use?), but I notice that the lack of quality shows most in images with angled solid straight lines (as appears on the second image along the lines of the phone)

Thanks for all of your input contributors.

Hi there RSuava

The first image I suspect looks ok, because of the color contrast, and the patterns are too complex for anyone to noticed the compression. I took the photo with S4 in auto mode. I open it in Pixlr, added the blur effect, sharpen it a bit and up the contrast. Then upload directly to Instagram.

Second one is stock, directly from S4 to Instagram, no touch up at all.

You have a good day
Cheers
 
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This is a very interesting case. I still think it's because of the high count of pixels being it's a bigger camera, but now I also believe other factors contribute to it as well after reading the other comments. I follow SoldierKnowsBest, who is a tech blogger on YT. He has been using the latest Nokia phone that has the 41mp count. I notice his pictures also look a little jagged, but I notice mainly or sometimes only when there are really bright colors and you're able to tell the detail. If it's an image where colors blend and don't pop you don't notice it as much if at all. He took a picture of a flower up close and the sky was in the background. The outsides of the flower were a little jagged. The picture wasn't bad overall.

Like the image above with the young man holding the phone. It looks fine until you see the phone he's holding and against his arm. Two different colors contrasting. But the darker colors like his shirt and the rest of the image just blend making it harder to see the outlines of things. Makes the image look nice and smooth overall or what we're used to seeing when uploading to Instagram. So it may be the combination of a Samsung S4 thing and high megapixel count.
 
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Like the image above with the young man holding the phone. It looks fine until you see the phone he's holding and against his arm. Two different colors contrasting. But the darker colors like his shirt and the rest of the image just blend making it harder to see the outlines of things. Makes the image look nice and smooth overall or what we're used to seeing when uploading to Instagram. So it may be the combination of a Samsung S4 thing and high megapixel count.

And surprisingly, the photo looks really good when view on instagram, using the overly saturated S4 screen.

Anyway, most probably best bet would be to make bunch of photos and different styles and find out first hand which one comes out on Instagram the best. Just like regular photography, when doing photos in the morning produce better results than noon, with a very washed out sky.
Find out the sweet spot, and keep that in mind when taking the next shot :)
 
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I too have just started to notice this - thanks for the post RSuave.

I have the same question... can we use any other photo editor app... I already have 2 other photo editing apps installed PicsArt and PhotoEditor... I'd hate to install yet another photo editor just to resize for Instagram.

Also, I usually only post pics on Instagram that I've made a collage with... so I'll use (for ex.) PhotoGrid to make a quick 4 pic collage and I'll post that to IG and that's where I've noticed the lower quality...

Should I be saving those collages instead and then resize to the 612x612 and THEN post to IG?

Ugh, seems like alot of trouble.. lol... or maybe it's the collage making apps that are messing up the quality of the pics...

Thanks :)
 
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Glad to help you all
(but dont forget the thanks button is there for a reason)

The app mentioned is definitely the one needed. The reason is because it has that specific interpolation method "Lanczos 3". Im willing to bet that the resize/image editor apps dont have/use that type of interpolation technique.

As far as collages, I would suggest making the collage first, saving, importing to "resize" app with settings adjusted as mentioned in The Verge post (interpolation and image size changes), saving, and upload from gallery to instagram.
 
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Glad to help you all
(but dont forget the thanks button is there for a reason)

The app mentioned is definitely the one needed. The reason is because it has that specific interpolation method "Lanczos 3". Im willing to bet that the resize/image editor apps dont have/use that type of interpolation technique.

As far as collages, I would suggest making the collage first, saving, importing to "resize" app with settings adjusted as mentioned in The Verge post (interpolation and image size changes), saving, and upload from gallery to instagram.

Just what I thought! Thanks again!! :)
 
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Has this been fixed in v4.1? or do we still need to use Resize lanczos 3? Or just turn off "use advanced image processing"?


Not fixed.

I uploaded a bunch of pics today and every single one of them, with Advanced Image Processing turned off, were butchered. I finally caved and bought Resize, and while it doesn't let IG butcher the photos, it does have a tough time handling reds. I resized a photo of a red AC Cobra and the picture came out somewhat pixelated. A common issue with red coloring in photos, for some reason reds are difficult for some photo editors to handle. Tried it on a black Lamborghini, came out pretty decent.
 
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