The Best Settings for Exporting JPEGs to Social Media (Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest)

In this blog I will outline the settings that I use to post images to Social Media. The setting I use to post images to Social Media are based on lectures I attended at Photoshop World in Orlando, Florida in May 2019. The suggestions are a mix of advice from Terry White and Scott Kelby.

To begin with you need to Export the File from Lightroom by going to FILE > EXPORT. Once you open the Export Panel you will see something like the screen below. At the top make sure to export to HARD DRIVE.

Under Export Location I export to my Desktop but I put photos into a subfolder (click on Subfolder) called Export Folder. I do this so all my photos are organized into 1 photo.

I do not touch the next 2 panels File Naming and Video. If for some reason you want to rename the file to something different than the name in LR this is where you would do it.

The next panel is File Settings—here I use image format JPEG, Quality = 80 (Terry White recommends 72) and use Color Space sRGB. According to Ken Rockwell sRGB gives better (more consistent) results and the same, or brighter, colors. I also leave Limit File size unchecked. See the settings below

The next panel I change is Image Sizing. Here I Resize to Fit Long Edge at 1080 pixels (you can also use 2000 pixels) with a resolution of 240 pixels per inch.

Under Output Sharpening I sharpen for screen since these images are not being printed and the amount is High.

Under Metadata I include Copyright & Contact Info Only. I don’t want people knowing locations.

Finally, there is a lot of controversy over watermarking. I use a Watermark so I click this box.

Those are all the settings you need to produce great images on the web.