Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Exporting photo without losing quality/ focus
- Thread starter katbel
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I know not everyone uses LR, but one should be able to export a similarly sharp image from any number of editing programs. My standard export settings in LR are 2048px on the long side, resolution of 100ppi and Standard sharpening for screen.
I personally use SmugMug to host photos, although when I post on forums like this I typically just export through the forum software. I don't usually have much of a quality difference for MR, although other forums I definitely have noticeable sharpness issues when using forum software.
I think one thing you need to get right is the maximum width of whatever forum you are using; I have found that typically forums will resize an image inhouse that typically reduces the size. My standard export is 2048px on the long side, but that is too wide for MR, so I think there is some magic voodoo going on to reduce it to fit the column width.
1. This is a an off-site SmugMug hosted version, uploaded at 2048px.
2. This is the exact same file uploaded through MR.
3. This is an 800px wide version of the SM image, hosted and resized by SM, which is just slighty smaller than the MR column.
4. This is an 800px wide version, exported from LR at 800px wide and uploaded through MR.
To me, the larger images (1 & 2) are nearly identical, and much better than the 800px versions. I probably give a slight advantage to the SmugMug hosted version, but to the average person they probably look the same.
Not sure if that helps anyone though.
Thank you for the tips…I know not everyone uses LR, but one should be able to export a similarly sharp image from any number of editing programs. My standard export settings in LR are 2048px on the long side, resolution of 100ppi and Standard sharpening for screen.
I personally use SmugMug to host photos, although when I post on forums like this I typically just export through the forum software. I don't usually have much of a quality difference for MR, although other forums I definitely have noticeable sharpness issues when using forum software.
I think one thing you need to get right is the maximum width of whatever forum you are using; I have found that typically forums will resize an image inhouse that typically reduces the size. My standard export is 2048px on the long side, but that is too wide for MR, so I think there is some magic voodoo going on to reduce it to fit the column width.
1. This is a an off-site SmugMug hosted version, uploaded at 2048px.
2. This is the exact same file uploaded through MR.
View attachment 2106701
3. This is an 800px wide version of the SM image, hosted and resized by SM, which is just slighty smaller than the MR column.
4. This is an 800px wide version, exported from LR at 800px wide and uploaded through MR.
View attachment 2106702
To me, the larger images (1 & 2) are nearly identical, and much better than the 800px versions. I probably give a slight advantage to the SmugMug hosted version, but to the average person they probably look the same.
Not sure if that helps anyone though.
I'll keep trialling and erroring until I hit that magic spot… one day. 🙂
Thanks for posting all these photos(💗) to compare, but aren't they all similar (beside the obvious size difference) because they are on the same website = MacRumors ?I know not everyone uses LR, but one should be able to export a similarly sharp image from any number of editing programs. My standard export settings in LR are 2048px on the long side, resolution of 100ppi and Standard sharpening for screen.
I personally use SmugMug to host photos, although when I post on forums like this I typically just export through the forum software. I don't usually have much of a quality difference for MR, although other forums I definitely have noticeable sharpness issues when using forum software.
I think one thing you need to get right is the maximum width of whatever forum you are using; I have found that typically forums will resize an image inhouse that typically reduces the size. My standard export is 2048px on the long side, but that is too wide for MR, so I think there is some magic voodoo going on to reduce it to fit the column width.
1. This is a an off-site SmugMug hosted version, uploaded at 2048px.
2. This is the exact same file uploaded through MR.
View attachment 2106701
3. This is an 800px wide version of the SM image, hosted and resized by SM, which is just slighty smaller than the MR column.
4. This is an 800px wide version, exported from LR at 800px wide and uploaded through MR.
View attachment 2106702
To me, the larger images (1 & 2) are nearly identical, and much better than the 800px versions. I probably give a slight advantage to the SmugMug hosted version, but to the average person they probably look the same.
Not sure if that helps anyone though.
I recall from some time ago that MR uses a ‘standard’ 1600 pixel long edge format.
I did a quick search here, but couldn’t find it.
I’m gonna try this on the next batch of photos I edit. Instead of putting full resolution (6000x4000) jpegs into Apple Photos, then directly uploading a “Large” sized version to MR, I’ll try exporting them 1600px long edge before I put them into Apple Photos. It’s an easy export preset to create in ON1 Photo.
Also, because I recently had to downgrade my Apple iCloud storage due to overall costs of service.
I did a quick search here, but couldn’t find it.
I’m gonna try this on the next batch of photos I edit. Instead of putting full resolution (6000x4000) jpegs into Apple Photos, then directly uploading a “Large” sized version to MR, I’ll try exporting them 1600px long edge before I put them into Apple Photos. It’s an easy export preset to create in ON1 Photo.
Also, because I recently had to downgrade my Apple iCloud storage due to overall costs of service.
I checked and MacRumor's max image width that is displayed in the column is 1536 pixels when zooming into the page with the browser before it switches to the mobile responsive breakpoint.
But on MR images displayed in posts are the same as the original source image - which means an image with a 2048px width and an 800px width image are both scaled down --or up in the case of the second one-- to fit the MR post content column.
Obviously this is bad news for that 800px image which is then blurred somewhat.
It also means that on a retina screen the higher resolution of the 2048px version will resolve nicely to that twice (or more) higher screen resolution -- which means a high definition and detail image. The 800px version is going to look terrible in comparison on a retina screen (which every Mac user has!).
So problem solved, you'd think: just export to 2048px or higher! Not so fast...
The problem at this point is the outdated JPG file format. WebP is a bit better, but still not really a solution for larger high resolution images and rather more optimized for smaller images. Both still force the user to choose between smaller file sizes and loss of sharpness/detail and the introduction of artifacts and noise along edges.
The flower example image comes in at a whopping 1.2mb JPG!
The solution is around the corner. Newer web image formats provide a way out of this mess. For example, AVIF uses modern compression algorithms and reduces file sizes quite dramatically in many cases while maintaining an excellent image quality.
For example: https://gofile.io/d/TlS7g0
This is the converted flower image. I saved it in PhotoLine as AVIF. All browsers, except Edge, support AVIF now. The only issue at this point in time is that a lot of web apps, like forum software, is lagging behind in supporting this format. Adobe and most other image software still does not support AVIF directly (Photoshop requires a plugin, for example).
Which is a crying shame. Because the AVIF version is 144kb - at no loss of quality. A dramatic difference in file size, though: 144kb vs 1.2mb.
This benefits everyone: the users, photographers, forum and website owners (far less server bandwidth and storage costs, and so on.
But on MR images displayed in posts are the same as the original source image - which means an image with a 2048px width and an 800px width image are both scaled down --or up in the case of the second one-- to fit the MR post content column.
Obviously this is bad news for that 800px image which is then blurred somewhat.
It also means that on a retina screen the higher resolution of the 2048px version will resolve nicely to that twice (or more) higher screen resolution -- which means a high definition and detail image. The 800px version is going to look terrible in comparison on a retina screen (which every Mac user has!).
So problem solved, you'd think: just export to 2048px or higher! Not so fast...
The problem at this point is the outdated JPG file format. WebP is a bit better, but still not really a solution for larger high resolution images and rather more optimized for smaller images. Both still force the user to choose between smaller file sizes and loss of sharpness/detail and the introduction of artifacts and noise along edges.
The flower example image comes in at a whopping 1.2mb JPG!
The solution is around the corner. Newer web image formats provide a way out of this mess. For example, AVIF uses modern compression algorithms and reduces file sizes quite dramatically in many cases while maintaining an excellent image quality.
For example: https://gofile.io/d/TlS7g0
This is the converted flower image. I saved it in PhotoLine as AVIF. All browsers, except Edge, support AVIF now. The only issue at this point in time is that a lot of web apps, like forum software, is lagging behind in supporting this format. Adobe and most other image software still does not support AVIF directly (Photoshop requires a plugin, for example).
Which is a crying shame. Because the AVIF version is 144kb - at no loss of quality. A dramatic difference in file size, though: 144kb vs 1.2mb.
This benefits everyone: the users, photographers, forum and website owners (far less server bandwidth and storage costs, and so on.
Last edited: