Uploading large VKontakte photos in high quality. What to do if VKontakte does not accept a photo against the background of a recovery request

Together with the application for the restoration of the VKontakte page, it requires you to send your photo against the background of the page with the application. It happens that VKontakte does not accept this photo. How to take a photo to be accepted?

What is needed? What should be the photo?

You need to take a sufficiently high-quality photo where you can see your face next to the screen and your application on the screen, which you make out. The support team will compare your face with the face in the photos on the page you want to restore (if there are at least one photos on the page!), and make sure that it is the real owner of the page and not the attacker who is requesting recovery. And the application in the background is needed so that the attacker cannot take any of your photos and send them on your behalf. Now you understand that such requirements are necessary for the security of your own page.

How to take a photo correctly?

You need to take a photo of yourself against the background of the monitor (screen) so that your face and application can be clearly seen on the screen. The photo should be clear (in focus), the lighting should be good (the face should not be in shadow). We recommend using a horizontal photo format (landscape orientation). It will be more convenient if you ask someone to help you. If you use VK only from your phone and you do not have a computer, laptop or tablet, you will have to find some of this. In addition, it is recommended to send an application from a computer. Many people have problems with their phones.

Some people are confused - they think that they need to take a photo in front of their VK page, which needs to be restored. This is not true. It is necessary to take a picture against the background of the page with the application, which you fill out and where you are going to attach this photo.

Why does VKontakte not accept photos?

VKontakte checks the quality of your photo and does not approve the application if the photo is not of high quality. Or the application is simply not sent if the photo is bad. The problem can be resolved. You just need to understand that taking a good photo is your personal concern. It is useless to cry in support and ask for something. You must solve your problem yourself. You will have to take the photo again and send it again.

Advice: do not argue with the support service about the quality of your photo. It is not up to you to decide which quality is sufficient and which is not. You yourself are in such a situation that you have to send a photo to restore access to the page, so fulfill the requirements.

Now specific solutions for different situations:

The photo in the background of the application is too dark

Photo too dark

VK writes: "The photo in the background of the application is too dark, try taking a photo in a well-lit room, using a flash or dimming the screen." How to fix?

• Make the light in the room brighter, turn on another light source, shine the light on the face ( table lamp, floor lamp, etc.) and take the photo again.
• If you take pictures in the evening, try it better in the morning or in the afternoon, when the room is light.
• Try making the screen darker (lower brightness).
• You cannot be photographed in front of the window, in front of the lamp. Light sources should be behind cameras or on the side, but not in the frame.
• If your phone automatically adjusts the brightness so that the screen is very light and your face is very dark, try adjusting the brightness. You can tap on a dark place on the screen - for example, a face, a wall, a shadow - to adjust the brightness balance.
• Try to turn on the flash on your phone (camera). But if it is reflected on the screen, it will be worse.
• If you have a tablet, try to open the creation of an application on it and go outside with it in the afternoon to take a photo.

The main secret: make the room as light as possible. Take pictures during the day. Add even more light. Turn on the chandelier. Bring the lights and point them at you. But there should be no light sources in the frame (except for the screen with the application).

Image is too low quality

VK writes: “You are trying to upload an image that is too low quality. Please attach a higher resolution photo. " What to do? There is a requirement: the photo must be in size not less than 1300 pixels(dots) horizontally. You don't have to look for another phone with a better camera or camera. Most modern phones can take such a photo without any problem. We recommend using the horizontal photo format (landscape orientation) when shooting when the long side is horizontal.

Perhaps it's a matter of the camera's settings, if for some reason it takes a low-resolution photo. You say, you have 18 megapixels, the photos are excellent, what does not suit you? Or maybe once you chose a low quality in the camera settings, like on the most cheap phone. If you look at the photo only on the small screen, then there is no difference for you. Set your camera to the highest quality or ask someone to figure it out. If all else fails, ask someone you know good phone take a picture of you.

How can I find out the dimensions of a photo on a computer?

1. Open the folder where the photo is stored.
2. Click on the photo with the left mouse button once (select this photo).
3. The size will be shown at the bottom of the window. For example, 960 × 720 is not enough, but 1300 × 1000 is already enough.

Advice: if all else fails, invite some of your friends over to help you take a photo. In fact, it is not difficult. Good photo can be done with almost any phone with sufficient lighting.

Photo is blurry (out of focus)

If the sharpness of the photo is insufficient (the face or the screen with the application is indistinct, out of focus or blurred), then it will not be accepted. On the phone, you can focus the image by tapping with your finger on the screen where you want to focus - on the face or on the screen. The distance from the head to the screen should be small. On the camera, focus is achieved when you press the shutter button halfway down (halfway). And if focusing is not automatic, but manual, then you need to turn the ring on the lens.

And if the photo is blurred and you can't make it clear, then the room is too dark. Make sure the lighting is good.

Photo grainy, poor quality

More often than not, the photo is grainy when there is not enough light. To fix this, use the same advice we gave you already: make the lights in the room brighter, bring another lamp, shine the light on your face. If you take pictures in dark time days, wait until morning or noon, when it will be brighter in the room.

Photo is not uploading or uploading, an error occurs

This means that you have problems with your browser (the program through which you enter the VKontakte site) or your computer, Internet connection, and the like. Try to clear temporary files (cache and cookies) or install another browser and send a request with a photo through it. If all else fails, the file with the photo is not added, find another computer (laptop) or invite a computer wizard.

If you are trying to upload a photo for an application from your phone, then do not try. Many have problems with this. For example, you press the button "Select a file" and nothing happens. There is only one solution to the problem: find a computer or laptop and create an application from it, through the full version of the VKontakte website.

The page that I want to restore does not contain my photos

Then it makes no sense to send your photo in the background of the application - your application will be rejected. Why? The explanation is here: The request to restore the VKontakte page was rejected. What to do? The only exception is if the photos on the page were, but were deleted by the person who hacked it (read there).

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Vkontakte spoils the quality of uploaded photos a lot. In some cases, this is especially noticeable (for example, when loading a very large image). I even posted examples of how some of the photos were damaged. Perhaps some users do not notice this, but the trained eye of a wedding photographer, or just an attentive person sees two different photos... So how do you deal with this? Until recently, I just changed the size of the photo, however, from time to time I still noticed, albeit not so significant, but still a deterioration in the quality of the photo. After reading about this problem on the Internet, I learned an interesting technique, which I will share with you (slightly improved).

So we have a large and beautiful photo... I'll make a reservation right away, I am writing only for those who have Photoshop - I was not interested in how to do similar operations in other editors, but the principle should be the same. How can we put this photo in contact so that the straight lines do not become jagged, and the colors remain as we see them? In short, there are three points:

1) Strongly increase the sharpness of the photo. In full-size form, the photo should become even too sharp, oversharpened, but after reducing the sharpness will return to normal.

2) In a clever way, we reduce the size of the photo to the one that the contact loves (1024 in height for vertical photos, and 1280 in width for horizontal ones).

3) We save in an equally cunning way, so that the photo does not contain unnecessary information, was in the sRGB color space and was of optimal quality.

Now in more detail. For example, I took my photo from a beautiful lovestory photo session in an abandoned manor.

1. Open the photo in Photoshop.

2. Create a duplicate layer, apply a filter to it - another - color contrast with a radius of about 3 pixels. Then set the layer to "Overlay" mode and mix it down. Thus, we sharpened the photo.

3. Select the item Image -> image size.

4. Exhibiting: For horizontal images - width 1920, for vertical- height 1536 (dimensions are one and a half times larger than the final ones), resampling - Bicubic, with a decrease (in other versions of Photoshop - Bicubic, clearer), we apply.

5. Select the item Image -> image size.

6. Exhibiting: For horizontal images - width 1280, for vertical- height 1024, resampling - Bicubic, smooth gradients (in other versions of Photoshop - Bicubic, the best for smooth gradients), apply.

The resulting file is uploaded to the contact. As a result, quality loss will be minimal and colors will match what you see on your monitor. I think that this technique is suitable not only for VKontakte, but also for other social networks, and simply transferring files over the Internet, because as a result you get an image of optimal weight, size and clarity, which will be equally displayed in any color space (i.e. e. on any computer).

P.S. Here is what VKontakte support writes about this:

Photo quality deteriorates when uploading, what should I do?

To minimize visual quality loss, it is better to upload smaller images (up to 1000 pixels on either side) and slightly sharpen them before uploading. In addition, it is better not to click on the "Add new photos" line, but to drag and drop a picture onto it directly from the computer folder.

There is one more important detail: Our downloader doesn't like Adobe RGB color profile, so it's better to convert the image for Web before uploading. The algorithm of actions is as follows: in Photoshop, "do not need to select" Save for WEB "(Alt + Shift + Ctrl + S), then edit the quality settings and be sure to mark" Convert to sRGB ".

The most valuable pictures are worth uploading to the documents section -

Including in high resolution, I was asked whether Vkontakt squeezes photos or not.

The answer is simple: depending on how to send (may or may not pinch). Detailed analysis, with examples, under the cut.

If you send a photo by message or through a wall / post as a "photo", then it is processed and / or resized on the server. To verify this once again, I sent two JPEG images, one in web-resolution (1400x915 pixels), and the other in full resolution, first "as a photo" and then "as a document":

When you attach something to a post, wall post or public post, you have a choice of how to attach it:

Depending on the selected method, the way you download the file also changes:

In the screenshot above, the dialog box that appears in the menu of a snapshot sent as a photo. Despite the inscription "Load original to disk" you will download not original, and a photo processed on the server. In case the picture was sent as a document, it will be shown in a completely different page design, and you can download it by clicking "Save document to disk" in the upper right corner:

Now let's figure out what is changing and how.

The 141 kilobyte 1400x915 snapshot sent as a "photograph" has undergone a subtle visual change. The photo resolution remained unchanged, but the file size changed - it was reduced to 105 kilobytes. In addition, the EXIF ​​and IPTC service areas were completely removed from the image, in which information about shooting and processing parameters, copyright, etc. is saved. Comparing pixel-by-pixel photos before and after sending, I saw that the photo increased slightly noise and changed the sharpness. That is, the snapshot has undergone some "improvement" by the service engine.

The picture in full resolution 4978x7618 (38 megapixels) has undergone much more processing when transferred "as a photograph". The file size was reduced from 1.58 megabytes to 100 kilobytes, and the resolution was reduced to 1338x2048 (2.7 megapixels), and it was also "shared", deprived of EXIF ​​/ IPTC. I suspect that my frame has remained in the annals of Vkontakte in full size, and with the next engine upgrade, when devices with 4K screens become the norm, a higher resolution version may be generated for it. But, this is only a theoretical invention, whether this will happen or not, I cannot vouch - a question to the developers of Vkontakte.

Let's move on to the second part of the experiment.

When these pictures were transferred "as a document", the quality, size and information inside did not change. The snapshot occupied 1.58 megabytes, so it does. EXIF and all information in place, byte-by-byte comparison revealed no changes.

When you upload a photo to a portfolio on Vkontakte, on a wall or in a public place, so that people can view the frame directly in the browser, to make a general impression, it is subject to slight changes, sharpening and recompression. This mechanism is designed for those who are not versed in the processing of photographs. User uploading regular photo, directly from the camera, gets a better and sharper picture at the output. This is correct and works correctly, the pictures benefit from it. And vice versa, the one who prepared with his hands right size and added sharpness with his hands, counting on the viewing of the picture by a sophisticated viewer, he is faced with a deterioration of the frame due to [moderate] oversharpness, because the same enhancement filter is applied to his frame.

One more conclusion follows from this. Before publishing a picture on VKontakte to the gallery, if you do everything by hand, you need to sharpen it a little less than to publish it on your website, in a professional photo hosting or blog.

This is the case today.

There are two main questions to VKontakte photo hosting: what image size will the uploaded photos have and what quality they will be. A week ago, I wrote about the size of photos uploaded on VKontakte, that there are two ways through the explorer and Drag & Drop. In other words, these methods are called download via flash and HTML5. To get in their albums big photos, you need to use the second method. After that, I carefully studied the records about the VKontakte photo-loader in order to approach the second question: the quality or the image compression algorithm. I publish the second material on my website, due to the demonstration of the original and condensed different ways photos.

First, you need to determine the moment in which resolution the user sees photos most often. Most monitors have 1280 pixels along the long side, the statistics can be raised, it will confirm this. Using the browser in full-window mode, the user will receive the displayed image with a long side of 1050-1060 pixels, depending on the program. In order to achieve maximum quality from VKontakte in conjunction with any browser, it makes no sense to upload larger images, otherwise the photos will be compressed by VKontakte or a browser script. The task is to achieve from the VKontakte processor a minimum of operations on images, the photographer must control the size of the output image and the parameters of sharpening.

Secondly, the VKontakte photo processor works with sequential or sequential JPEG, when the image is encoded block by block from left to right and from top to bottom. VKontakte does not support progressive JPEG.

Now I'll tell you about the experiments that I did with the image. I took a photo of the main building of Moscow State University, overlaid a copyright with a red heart, this color matters. I saved the image with 100% quality, saved a copy with increased sharpness and 100% quality. All operations can be read from the name of the original files.

Uploaded photos on VKontakte. Flash or HTML5 method does not matter as long as we do not go beyond 1280 px on the long side, the compression quality is the same. First photo is original uploaded via flash, then HTML5, third photo is sharpened.

The Live Community Q&A contains excerpts from a dialogue with VKontakte support, which claims that the VKontakte image processor compresses by 20%. This is not the case, according to my conservative estimate of 40% or more. To demonstrate my statement, there are two files, original and zipped, saved in Photoshop via Save for WEB with a quality of 60. Only with a decrease in quality by 40%, I received files of similar size. The compression algorithm for VKontakte images is not described anywhere.

The last step, the most interesting one, is the comparison of images. To compare two images, the Difference mode was used. Two identical images in the Difference blend mode will give black field... It makes no sense to compare the original with 60% quality and the file from VKontakte, there is a difference, but there is no starting point for the image quality. Examples of comparing the original 100% and 60%, then the original 100% and compressed by the VKontakte processor. As you can see in the image, there is a difference, but it is not significant. In order to visually assess the deterioration of the image quality, the contrast is forcibly raised 8 times, the light point of the contrast curve is shifted by 224 points.

The difference between the original 100% and 60% preservation quality.

The difference between the original is 100% and the VKontakte processor. The second image has a lot more artifacts, less detail and less contouring.

Prosharpened original 100% and after the processor VKontakte. The situation is similar to the previous picture. There is a difference in the quality of the images, but it can only be detected when the problem is artificially amplified.

By by and large the VKontakte processor has one drawback - it does not work well with uniform colors, especially with red. I asked at the beginning to pay attention to the red heart on the copyright, it is almost uniformly red. There are a maximum of artifacts on the photos uploaded on VKontakte on this section of the image. From my experience of shooting, processing photos and VKontakte publications, I can say that I constantly observe this in concert photographs with red, blue, green spotlights. Also, VKontakte does not work well with color gradients, such photos are in stripes. The main thing is to know these shortcomings of the VKontakte processor so that the published photos appear to be of high quality.

The latest selection of images to demonstrate acceptable quality, produced by the VKontakte photo processor. On the left is the original 100% of the image, on the right after loading VKontakte.

On the left, the original image with 100% save quality, on the right, uploaded to VKontakte.

Output. How to upload high quality VKontakte photos? We determine the size of the image, raise the sharpness of the reduced image, save it in Photoshop with the maximum quality settings, load it on VKontakte. If we want to save the image in social network in size from 1280 to 2560, we use the Drag & Drop method when loading.