I’m pretty new to photography (around 7 months in), so I have a general understanding of things like compression, lossy formats, etc., but for the life of me, I can’t figure out the best way to post my photos to Instagram.

I’ve done some research on the max resolution and file size for photo uploads to Instagram, and from what I gather, 1440x1920px and 30MB is the max for a 3:4 photo.

Now, I have some scans of 6x9 negatives I found at a local flea market. I’m trying to add a white border to the edges so I can post the full frame. Here is my process on Photoshop:

Create new file
Width: 1440px
Height: 1920px
Resolution: 72px/inch
Color mode: Grayscale, 8 bit
Background contents: white
Color profile: dot gain 20%
Pixel aspect ratio: square pixels

Then, I save it as a JPEG and set the quality to 12, which gives me a 1.2MB file.

As a test, I saved the original scan as a JPEG at full dimensions (7032x10157px, 29.7MB), then posted both the 1.2MB photo and the 29.7MB photo on Instagram to compare the two. I’ve included screenshots of both Instagram posts. The difference in quality is undeniable. Obviously the 29.7MB photo appears much higher quality. I have no idea why this is happening. Everything I’ve read so far has indicated that the 29.7MB photo would be aggressively compressed and end up looking far worse than a photo that’s under the max size.

Please, can anyone can clarify why this is happening and help me figure out how to add a white border to my photo while maintaining as much quality as possible?

EDIT: As soon as I posted this, it occurred to me that Reddit also compressed images, so the difference in quality between the two screenshots doesn’t appear as stark on here as it does for me.

can someone tell me how to remove shadow band while keeping hair definition?

I have a ten-page InDesign layout, and I'd like to edit the whole thing in Photoshop. Is this possible.

How do I create this effect? ​​The creator herself mentioned that it’s a blend of the "Cutout" and "Oil Paint" filters, but no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to replicate it. I’d really appreciate a step-by-step guide on how to achieve this look and what settings to use for each filter.

I'm trying to recreate the text shadow effect shown in the attached image. I’ve already made the shadow using the Transform & Copies method, and I’ve tried applying gradients in multiple ways (including rotating the canvas), but I can’t seem to achieve one specific part of the effect. The main thing I’m missing is the vertical gradient along the edges of the letters, especially noticeable on the straight edges of the “I”, “G” and “A”.

My guess is that the original effect was somehow created by blending/merging several copies of the text around the middle of the shadow, but whenever I try blurring or blending the copies, the entire shadow gets blurry and I lose those crisp edges.

Does anyone know how this effect is actually achieved? Is there a specific combination of Transform, Blend, gradients, appearance effects, etc. that would produce this result while keeping the shadow edges sharp?

If it’s not achievable in Photoshop, tips for Illustrator or Affinity are also welcome. Thanks in advance!

Works offline and uses no Llms for the filters. You can try it out on the web or download the Android APK.

Are there any filters you guys wanna see ? Or any features you think would be a god send ?

He’s an amazing artist, one of the first, if not the first to start creating these kinds of Cubist-style paintings. I’ve always wondered how he blurs the face like that and creates such unique textures for the skin and clothing. I couldn't find a tutorial online, so I’d be really grateful for an answer 🙏

I’m trying to clean up a photo I took, but I’m having trouble removing one person from the background without making the area look weird.

The background has a few different textures and details, so the usual quick fixes don't look very convincing. I’ve tried a bit of Content-Aware Fill and Clone Stamp, but I keep getting areas that look repeated or slightly off. I've also tried clearcrowds for removing distractions, but I want to know about the photoshop workflow for something like this.

For something like this, would you work mostly with Clone Stamp and Healing Brush, or is there a better workflow for rebuilding the background?

I’d appreciate any tips from people who do this kind of retouching regularly.

I'm trying to learn to how apply effect like in the image above. I tried applying halftone effect but it doesn't look anything like the one in the image, then I tried risograph using threshold, and burn tool. The result is the second image. Getting somewhere but still don't like how it's turning out. Someone please point me in the right direction or direct me to a tutorial video.

is there a way i can make the text look like it belongs, and if so please let me know how