whats with the compression of flickr?

I have been using flickr pro for a while now, but just recently started taking much better better pictures than in the past. Now, when I post pictures from Flickr, I notice they are soft and not as sharp as when I uploaded them at full resolution.

Is this just an inherent problem with Flickr? I have been looking at smugmug for a switch because this compression is not pleasing at all.

I take 21-22MB shots in RAW with my 5D2, then reduce them in CS5 to 900x600. Never have had a problem with sharpness on uploading.

Flickr does no compression at all.

I agree with Jay. I always resize my shots to 1024px on the longest dimension then add the tiniest amount of sharpening prior to uploading to flickr. Flickr won't compress your files, but it will have to resize them if you give it full resolution images to work on.

I guess I should try some smaller uploads. I've always uploaded jpeg files. This last batch, I shot RAW in Vegas and they're was a huge difference in quality of the picture. So, when I uploaded full pics, when I saw the result I was a little worried. Huh mm. Thanks.

Yes, always send them a JPEG, with dimensions similar to those mentioned above. Sharpen the JPEG if you like before uploading, but do the sharpening after reduction as a last step.

Flickr does do "something" since the extra sharpening is quite noticeable in my opinion. They also store the images as JPG's, I think, so any resizing has to go through JPG compression. As to what quality they use, I have no idea.

Smugmug... you can set the amount of sharpening for each Gallery you create. They use that for the alternate sized images they create. The original JPG you upload is not touched.

bohdank wrote in post #12659632
Flickr does do "something" since the extra sharpening is quite noticeable in my opinion. They also store the images as JPG's, I think, so any resizing has to go through JPG compression. As to what quality they use, I have no idea.

Smugmug... you can set the amount of sharpening for each Gallery you create. They use that for the alternate sized images they create. The original JPG you upload is not touched.

Isn't that only available with a pro account?


I find with both Smugmug and Flickr that the key to good image display is to resize to a reasonable web display size yourself (1024px for instance) but don't apply too much (if any) sharpening to them or they can look over-sharpened after any processing the web sites may do.

NinetyEight wrote in post #12665522
Isn't that only available with a pro account?

Power or Pro account.