Now, the definition of fair play here is going to be a bit messy.
Why can’t I just upload from my computer in the first place? Hostile to Users Who Play Fair If you’re using a camera, passing an image from camera, to a raw processor, to Dropbox, to your phone’s photo library, to Instagram is a mess. Whether you’re going through Lightroom, Snapseed, or the latest trendy filter, even a non-technical user is passing their image around through multiple apps. Nobody uses the IG app to take and upload the picture. It’d also be nice to see better integration with the real world workflow that IG users have. I don’t need the clutter of IG’s built in filters (which nobody has touched for the last 5 years), but I’d love to see better native support for analytics and post scheduling. This is more of a pipe dream, but I’d love to see a “Pro” app or subscription introduced. Instead, everyone benefits from a higher quality image, including Instagram’s most important users, advertisers.ĭoes this seem like the best use of screen space? With modern compression algorithms like WebP, AVIF, and HEIC, as well as faster cellular tech like 4G and 5G becoming commonplace, there’s not going to be a hit to user experience. It certainly isn’t for lack of cash to pay for the rounding-error costs of data transport and storage, however, with Instagram forecast to add billions of dollars to Facebook’s revenue figures. Is this a social network for sharing photos or disappearing videos?ĭisplays have come a long way since 2010, but it seems like Instagram hasn’t. What makes this even funnier to me is that you can get higher resolution from a Story or IGTV post than an actual photo upload. In an era where even a cell-phone shoots 12MP photos, 4K video, and has a 2.7K display, you’re limited to a measly 1350 pixels along the long edge.
Moving beyond the crop, we come to resolution. It’s hardly a set of choices made with regards to composition. Even prioritizing for screen space ends up hitting you with a hidden penalty of having an awkward, automatic crop to a 1:1 thumbnail on your profile. It took years to be able to actually upload a rectangular image, but even today, working with a crop outside of a 4:5 portrait ends up penalizing you by reducing the size of your image on viewer’s feeds. When Instagram started, you were locked to an asinine 1:1 crop.
For an app owned and operated by one of the richest digital-centric companies around, they still seem to be stuck in a 2010 approach to handling images. This first point is the simplest to make: the actual technical aspects of uploading, sharing, and viewing photos are just awful. Whatever it started as, many photographers take it very seriously now, and so do many businesses.
Regardless, an Instagram presence has become almost mandatory for involvement in social media, providing a way to network and showcase work to a new audience, and creating a major avenue for advertising and more insidious marketing tactics in general. Let’s get this out of the way first: it’s clear that Instagram doesn’t have an origin in or emphasis on “serious” photography, with the most liked photo of all time being a stock photo of an egg. Instagram, however, doesn’t seem to care about photographers - only users. If you’re like me, you’re one of Instagram’s billion active users, and if you’re a photographer, it’s a natural choice to have a presence on the platform that has been synonymous with photography over the last decade.
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