With around two billion active users, Instagram has long been the undisputed number one photosharing platform worldwide.
A fact that, over time, has also attracted more and more professional photographers, who can present their glossy images to a wide audience free of charge - which of course completely contradicts the original idea of the app. The original idea was to be a platform for purely mobile photography: from smartphones for smartphones.
No wonder Instagram soon threatened to collapse under the burden of ever increasing DSLR exports.
A reaction was therefore not long in coming. As a company, Instagram's goal is of course to reduce the file sizes on its servers so that as many images as possible can be stored for little money. In order to achieve exactly that, an algorithm is now used that mercilessly compresses those resource-hungry uploads and prioritizes smaller file sizes over image quality.
So far understandable? Good! But that doesn't necessarily mean that the final result will look worse.
To get around the algorithm, the trick is to export images with certain settings that keep the file sizes small from the outset - without sacrificing quality.
How this works in Lightroom is explained below.
THE MAXIMUM RESOLUTION FOR INSTAGRAM
On retinal devices, Instagram processes images in two different ways: the maximum length on the longest side measures up to 1,350 pixels in portrait images, while the maximum length of the longest side in landscape images must not exceed 1,080 pixels. So if, for example, a portrait image is longer than 1,350 pixels in vertical length, there is a risk that it will be "broken" by the algorithm during upload. The same applies accordingly to landscape images; here, a horizontal length of 1,080 pixels should be kept.
In the export screen you should also activate the option "Do not enlarge". This prevents upscaling problems if your images are smaller than the dimensions mentioned above.
WHAT ASPECT RATIOS ARE SUPPORTED BY INSTAGRAM?
Since August 2017 you no longer have to limit yourself to the square 1:1 ratio, but now have four native aspect ratios to choose from:
- square - 1:1 (maximum length 1,350 pixels)
- Landscape - 1.91:1 (maximum length 1,080 pixels)
- Portrait - 4:5 (maximum length 1,350 pixels)
- Versatile - 4:3/3:4 (maximum length 1,350 pixels in portrait mode, 1,080 pixels in landscape mode)
The "Versatile" aspect ratio can be used in both portrait and landscape mode.
Three of these ratios are offered as standard in Lightroom's Crop function. Only the 1.91:1 ratio has to be entered manually. Select "Custom" and enter 1.91 and 1.
WHICH COLOR SPACE SHOULD I USE?
Even though you may not be familiar with color spaces, you'll be able to tell the difference between a perfect Instagram image and a desaturated, greenish tint.
Color space refers to the spectrum of colors that can be represented in an image. Of course, science goes much deeper - SLLounge has all the details. But to share your images on the Internet, at least some basic understanding is required.
Because when exporting from Lightroom, you have different color spaces available. However, Internet browsers or apps like Instagram only display images in the standard color space sRGB, so you should choose this color space. If you export your images to AdobeRGB or ProPhotoRGB, the color values of your photos will shift and become color cast and desaturated.
A slight color difference that you can see between your computer monitor and a smartphone screen has more to do with calibration than with color spaces. So in this case you don't really have any influence on that.
Time to summarize it all...
THE BEST EXPORT SETTINGS FOR INSTAGRAM IN LIGHTROOM
- First make sure that the crop of your image corresponds to one of the four native aspect ratios (1:1, 1.91:1, 4:5, 4:3/3:4)
- You should set the quality to 76% - this is roughly the algorithmic sweet spot between file size and image quality
- Your image format should be JPEG
- The selected color space should be sRGB
- You can sharpen according to your personal taste; I usually leave the setting at "Standard".
- The resolution is not important for the monitor playback. Here you can basically enter any value
Please let me know in the comments if these tips helped you or which settings you use best.
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