Social Media or High Resolution?

I'm often asked the question of what is the difference between social media digital files and high resolution files. Putting it bluntly, social media digitals are strictly for sharing on social media only, high resolution files, are the full size file in which you can print at home.

When you purchase an image from any photographer, you are purchasing a license to use that image. The copyright, will always belong to the photographer. This means, you do not own the photo, you are licensed to use it, in the way in which you have purchased it. A social media digital, has been licensed to you for posting on social media (tik tok, instagram, facebook ect) and is also useful for just storing on your phone for memories. It is worth noting, that this is also for your personal use. A business or company, cannot just use this image on their social medias, as this is no longer personal use, but for advertising their services, products ect, so therefore require a commercial license to use the image. If in doubt, always ask the photographer!

A social media file, is resized to look great on social media. If you upload to facebook for example, a full resolution image, Facebook will do its own job of resizing the image. It will basically shrink the image, which is why they come up so pixelated and blury. An image already resized, will look clear and sharp, like the image was intended to look, because it has been resized to the correct size for social media. It will also contain a logo, at the bottom like the image above.

A high resolution image, is the full size image, no resizing, no shrinking. A high resolution image comes with the full license for you to personally use as you wish! Print the file as many times, for every family member, use on social media or keep on your phone for memories. However, we always recommend printing your pictures as large as you wish to go, as a digital file does not do them justice!

“ copyright protection lasts for the life of the author plus an additional 70 years. “ copyright.gov