Image and video quality

A photo can look softer once it publishes than it did in Planoly. Quality changes in three places: the upload, Planoly's compression, and the platform's own re-encode after it receives the file.

What Planoly changes on upload

On the web

Images are compressed to fit the channel's file-size target. The target depends on the channel you have open:

An image already under the target is uploaded as it is. Uploads with no channel attached yet — bulk create, the media library, dropping files onto the grid — use 7 MB.

Three things to know about that compression:

• Resolution is kept. The compressor is told to hold the pixel dimensions and reach the size target on quality alone.
• The output is JPEG, whatever went in. A PNG with transparency flattens to white.
• GIF and SVG are left alone. So are videos: your browser uploads a video exactly as it is. Planoly re-encodes it once after it arrives, without resizing the picture. See uploading at full quality.

One pixel rule exists. A TikTok photo carousel image is downscaled to fit 1080 x 1920 for portrait, or 1920 x 1080 for anything else. Planoly does this for you when you add the file, without asking.

In the mobile app

The app is stricter. Any image whose longer side is over 2,048 pixels is resized down to 2,048 and saved as JPEG at 80% quality. HEIC and HEIF photos are converted to JPEG whatever their size. Videos are uploaded untouched.

What the platform changes after that

Planoly deliberately does not cap pixel dimensions on the web. The platforms accept large images and re-encode them themselves, so a cap on our side would discard resolution the platform would have kept. Its checks cover file size and aspect ratio instead.

What the platform does with the file after it arrives is outside Planoly, and there is no setting on either side that turns it off.

Getting the most quality

1. Start under the target. An image already below the channel's file-size target is passed through with no re-encode at all.
2. Match the channel's aspect ratio. Instagram takes images from 9:16 to 1.91:1. Outside that, Planoly blocks the auto-post, and cropping to fit costs pixels. The full set of limits is in Media requirements for auto-post.
3. Do not re-save a file that is already compressed. Each pass loses more.
4. Add the media on the web when the post has to be sharp.

Reporting a problem to Instagram

If the file looks right in Planoly and wrong on Instagram, the re-encode is Instagram's. Instagram collects these through Report a problem in its app; the current path is on the Instagram Help Center.

A useful check before you report: publish the same file straight from the Instagram app. If it looks the same, the compression is Instagram's rather than anything in the upload.