Anne writes: I know a budding photographer who posts the most beautiful photos to her Facebook page. How do I download high-quality versions so I can frame them for her as a present?
Hi Anne! So, first the good news: downloading photos from Facebook is incredibly easy. The bad news? Read on.
You can download any Facebook photo that’s viewable by you by opening Facebook’s so-called “photo viewer”—which is just a fancy way of saying you need to click the photo.
You can also download a Facebook photo by right-clicking it and selecting “Save As,” or simply by dragging it to your desktop.
Once the photo is open, you can save it to your desktop in one of three ways:
- Click the “Options” button near the bottom of the photo, then click “Download.”
- Right-click the photo and select “Save As.”
- Drag the image from the photo viewer to your desktop.
Now, what if you want a high-resolution version of the photo—that is, a version that you could blow up and frame on a wall?
Well, here’s the thing: whenever you save a photo from Facebook, you’ll automatically receive the highest-quality version that’s available.
That means if the photo was uploaded to Facebook by a professional photographer with an $800 SLR camera, you can expect a jumbo-size image (up to a whopping 2,048 pixels on a side) that’ll look snazzy in a photo frame.
If, on the other hand, you’re downloading a blurry Facebook photo snapped by a bargain-basement camera phone, don’t be surprised when the image doesn’t look any better on your desktop.
Hope that helps, Anne. Have more questions? Let me know!
Bonus tips
To ensure you’re uploading the highest-quality photos possible, make sure to check the “High Quality” box in a given Facebook photo album.
One more thing: Want to view full-screen Facebook photos in your web browser? Just click the arrows in the top-right corner of the image to jump to full-screen mode. Note: only the Google Chrome and Firefox web browsers support Facebook’s full-screen photo viewer.
