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I have tried everything I can think of to avoid my page profile picture getting blurry , but no matter how small I resize it (resized it to width of 180px - still blurred), it still gets blurry.

Anyone got some ideas?

[my profile picture]

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  • As you're seeing in the answers, this really depends on the software being used to do the resize (and the code that it's using). For similar reasons it also depends on the specific image and image format.
    – Shinrai
    Feb 15, 2011 at 15:59
  • Note that "compression" does not mean "make smaller in pixel dimensions"
    – horatio
    Feb 15, 2011 at 16:11
  • I know. I resize the picture to make the file size smaller to avoid Facebook compressing it. It didn't help tough. :) Feb 15, 2011 at 16:52
  • What you're calling blurry is just the reality of reducing the resolution of an image with as much detail in it as yours. The only real way to avoid this is to redraw the image at the desired resolution. Sometimes you can get better results at reduced resolutions using the SVG vector graphics format if you have drawing tools that support it.
    – martineau
    Feb 15, 2011 at 17:25
  • I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because the problem is specific to a website (Facebook, see comments in answers below) and may or may not still be a current problem.
    – Mokubai
    Mar 24, 2017 at 7:40

4 Answers 4

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If it converts to JPG and compresses it enough it's always going to have some blur for graphics like this: PNG vs JPEG
image thanks to Robert MacLean from this post but originated from Louis Brandy.

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  • Resize it yourself. Most image manipulation programs can do better than Facebook.
  • Convert to true-color before resizing; some programs might be trying too hard to remain within the 256-color limit of GIF format.
  • Try applying "Sharpen" or similar effects after the resize.

180px wide

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If facebook is converting your upload to JPEG, and you have no control over it, then you are out of luck: there is no solution. JPEG is really meant for photographs and randomly-colored adjacent pixels. Line art or limited-color-set artwork is better rendered with PNG or GIF.

If facebook allows you to keep the image as gif, do that, if they only allow you to set compression, set it to highest possible quality.

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  • Facebook gives no control of the format nor the compression. All you've got is a browse-button and an upload button. Feb 17, 2011 at 13:34
  • then there is no solution other than picking another image
    – horatio
    Feb 17, 2011 at 14:39
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I've found Paint.NET to be good at resizing. This is at 180px - how does it look? resized


comment: This is an interesting problem actually. The heavy compression used by Facebook has introduced an unacceptable level of artifacts despite actually increasing the size of the file. Side by side, the original smaller file is visibly superior:

resized facebook version

but Facebook's version is half as big again, so it can't be purely using size as a metric.

I'm afraid I can't suggest a better approach other than trial and error but I'm interested to see how or if you solve it!

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