Why Are My Instagram Stories Blurry? – Techzillo
Often you may notice that the pictures or videos you post to your Instagram story are blurry. As an avid Instagram user, knowing that your followers aren’t seeing the fine quality of your story because Instagram has made it blurry can be annoying.
Why Are My Instagram Stories Blurry?
Your Instagram stories are blurry and lose quality once you post them because the aspect ratio is incorrect. This forces Instagram to compress your image. Or the post file is over 1MB which means that it will be compressed.
To avoid Instagram ruining the quality of the stories you post, you need to ensure that you’re uploading pictures with a size below 1Mb and have the correct aspect ratio.
All Instagram stories are constrained within 1080px by 1920px aspect ratio, so if you have an image that doesn’t fit this, it will be compressed. Instagram makes your stories blurry for the best user experience in photo loading, optimizing network connectivity, and taking up minimal space in the phone’s memory and drive.
There’s no way to change the upload quality of your stories on Instagram, and it all depends on the quality of your camera. If your Instagram story is blurry, this is because of Instagram’s compression feature.
All stories uploaded to Instagram also experience compression and loss in quality. Hence, the best way to fix this is to upload high-quality stories, so you don’t notice the compression as much.
Note: Usually, when your Instagram story is blurry, you might notice that your posts/the posts you see on your feed are blurry or your profile picture is blurry.
1. Poor Internet Connection
If you have a poor internet connection or are on mobile data or a slightly slow WiFi network, your stories may appear blurry. If you have a poor internet connection, then Instagram will lower the quality of stories if the Internet speed is slow while uploading.
If this has happened to you, you’ll notice that your stories seem normal to you while uploading, but the quality goes down once the upload is done. It’s always important to remember to upload on a solid WIFI connection rather than data.
Before you do so, check your internet speed, and if it’s not good enough, either chance to data or wait for the stories to stop being low quality.
2. Your Picture isn’t Optimized
If you’ve uploaded a picture to your story, the outcome of a bad quality story would be the result of poor optimization, a side effect of Instagram most likely stretching the original picture you uploaded. If you upload an image that’s too small or low resolution, Instagram will then stretch the image to fit your profile window.
To fix this problem, upload an image that’s of higher quality. It would help if you aimed for Instagram’s limit of 1 MB for an image. The reason is that a higher quality image doesn’t suffer from stretching, and shrinking a higher resolution photo isn’t going to cause a bad quality story. And don’t go any lower than 1080px by 1920px.
3. Your Network Connection Timed Out
When you upload an image, it doesn’t upload all of the data at one time–it does so a little at a time. The strength of your connection helps chern the data faster. If your network times out while you’re still uploading, you could end up with a blurry image.
The best solution for this is to check your network status. You may have to reboot your equipment, like your modem and router, and try again, like so:
- Locate your modem and router (if you have a router). Find the power cable for your modem and router in the back. Follow the cords until you reach the power outlet they are both plugged into.
- Pull the power cords from the power outlet and give the modem and router at least 2 minutes.
- After 2 minutes have passed, plug your modem and router back in. Give your modem and router time to reboot and start broadcasting your network. Double-check it’s working by using another device like a mobile device or a computer.
4. Reducing Compression in JPEG Files
Since Instagram will always have to do some compression on your image, you’ll have to live with the fact that there’s nothing you can do about that. However, there are ways to reduce the amount of compression they do so you don’t have to experience the full effects of the quality loss.
When it comes to minimizing the amount of compression occurring, one key thing to consider is the photo’s dimension. The dimension is crucial to how your picture comes out when uploading it to Instagram.
If you can do this, make sure the photo you want to upload is 1920px on its longest side. This will minimize the amount of compression that’ll take place. This is because Instagram won’t change the dimensions of your image. Therefore, it remains as sharp as possible.
If you’re using editing software, make sure that the picture is sharp enough when looking at it with 100% view. Doing this will ensure that it stays sharp before you upload it. If things aren’t looking too sharp, then you can sharpen them up using Adobe Photoshop. The Save for Web function is another great feature to use before you upload something to Instagram. Compress the image to a JPEG file at 70% quality whilst ensuring it’s at an sRGB color profile.
Instagram Story Blurry With Music?
You may have noticed that your Instagram stories are blurry when you add music. This is an ongoing problem that Instagram has failed to fix, and it appears as if adding things like music and stickers to your stories affects the quality. In this case, you should ensure that HD uploads are enabled and that the Instagram app is updated. Updates are there to fix these problems, and you might end up with a better quality story after updating Instagram.
How to Fix Blurry Instagram Stories
1. Upload HD
An upload HD setting allows you to ensure that your pictures and videos are uploaded as HD. This will make your Instagram posts high quality as well as your stories.
For Android:
1. Tap on the Hamburger button.
2. Select Settings
3. Select Account > Data Usage
4. Toggle Upload photos in HD on.
For iOS:
1. Tap on the Hamburger button.
2. Select Settings
3. Select Account > Data Usage
4. Toggle Upload photos in HD on.
Keeping the Right Aspect Ratio so Instagram Doesn’t Blur Your stories
You need to keep an aspect ratio of 9:16 so that Instagram doesn’t lower the quality of your stories. This will make the ideal photo size 1080px by 1920px. This means that your photo will fill up the screen to keep the picture’s quality high. If your photo is larger than this and the dimensions are incorrect, Instagram might reduce the quality of the story, so you need to keep within the aspect ratio and the file size.
To do this with any photo you have, you should use Adobe Lightroom because this already has a setting that will keep your picture at an aspect ratio of 4:5. If you want an aspect ratio of 1:1, simply using your phone’s setting to crop will allow you to do this.
- Go to Adobe Lightroom on desktop.
2. When choosing the aspect ratio, keep it at 4:5 or 8:10.
3. When exporting the photo, check Resize to Fit.
4. 1080px with a resolution of 72ppi.
5. Select Sharpen for Screen.
6. Select Export.
Maximize Your Phones Camera Settings to Improve Loss of Quality
The best way to prevent a huge loss of quality in your Instagram photos is to maximize your phone’s camera quality.
Doing this means that you’ll have better quality photos so when you upload them to your Instagram story and they do lose their quality, the difference wouldn’t be as bad if you didn’t make the quality better initially.
- Open the default Camera app.
- Tap on the Gear icon. This will pull up the settings menu of the Camera app. You’ll immediately see the picture size on the top portion of the settings.
- Click on Picture size.
- Set it to the biggest size resolution. You can also tap on the video size to ensure it’s at the maximum resolution. For the example, it’s FHD 1920 x 1080. If you’re using the front camera for selfies and videos, adjust the settings for that as well.
When you adjust the settings and max it out, Instagram will reduce the size of an image to fit its maximum rules. The full size of Instagram posts is 1080px, so if you take pictures from the default camera, utilizing the best resolution will let you keep within the maximum length of posts.
Use a High Quality to Keep Story Quality High
Another thing you can do to keep the quality of your stories high is to use a high-quality camera. This could be a DSL camera that you’re using, which will allow you to keep the quality high straight away.
Another great alternative is a new iPhone or Android. These devices have very advanced cameras, allowing you to keep your story quality high. The image will lose quality when you upload the picture to your story rather than Instagram, making it blurry. However, it will still be of excellent quality compared to other people’s posts that don’t use high-quality cameras.
Don’t Use Your WIFI
If your Instagram story is low quality, then make sure to use data instead of WIFI. To change to WIFI, turn off your WIFI and turn your mobile data on.
- Change to data and turn off WIFI
- Post in your Instagram Story
- Check the quality of your Instagram story.
Usually, mobile data has a more stable Internet connection, so you’re more likely to have a higher quality story.
Use Instagram’s Camera to Prevent Loss of Quality
If you’re using another Camera app, you may consider using Instagram’s default camera app. Although there isn’t much you can do with the default camera of Instagram; it takes pretty decent photos that are high-res.
This follows the previous method’s technique in taking a high-resolution photo, and the post will just be adjusted upon upload to the platform. Your photos aren’t any less pixelated, but you’ll see how they will turn on as soon as you take the picture as opposed to when you upload them and feel the massive drop in quality.
Don’t Share the Photo Before Uploading to Prevent Initial Blurring.
If you’re exchanging photos through Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp, there’s a hundred percent chance that the media content gets compressed. Facebook and WhatsApp do this to keep the experience smooth and sacrifice some of the content quality of the photos and videos.
I know I’m guilty of this because I always send photos through WhatsApp, so I didn’t realize that the media gets compressed until I dug into the file directory. Sharing on apps before you post on your Instagram story will cause initial compression, so when you do go to Instagram and post the already compressed photo, then it could come out pixelated due to Instagram’s further reduction.
Alternatives to this include sharing the file through Bluetooth or uploading it via Google Drive or iCloud.
Fix Instagram Settings to Stop Further Loss of Quality
- Go to your Instagram profile. You can tap on the lower right icon or your profile picture to do this. This will show you the profile tab.
- Tap on the menu. This is in the upper right icon with the three horizontal lines.
- Click Settings.
- Click Account.
- Click on Mobile Data Use below. You’ll see that Instagram can help save data so this may also affect the quality of the experience.
- Toggle off Use Less Data.
Update Instagram If Your Stories Are Blurring More Than Usual
One way you may be experiencing some poor image quality is if the app version you’re using is outdated. Consider going to Google Play or iTunes App Store and downloading the latest version of Instagram. The app updates from time to time, so you can check back to the app page of Instagram for the latest version.
You can also consider updating your device using an older unit. Older units have an older version of Android or iOS, which may not have the capabilities to run a more recent version of the Instagram app.
Uninstall and Reinstall Instagram
If there’s an error within Instagram that’s causing Instagram stories to blur; you’ll need to download it and reinstall it. There may be something wrong with Instagram itself, so redownloading it again may clear up the issue.
If you want to uninstall Instagram:
- Hold Instagram and wait for the settings to show up.
- Tap on Delete, then tap delete again to confirm.
- Go back to the Play Store or App Store and download Instagram again
When you download it again, go back to the app and see if your stories are blurry.
Reset Network Settings
When you reset your network settings, this will fix any network problems that are causing Instagram to blur your stories and ruin the quality. Resetting the network settings clears any setting related to a network which could fix the app that’s having issues with your network. When you do this, your settings will go back to how there were when you first had your device.
To reset your network settings:
Android:
- Go to the Settings app on your Android.
- Scroll to and select General management or System
- Tap either Reset or Reset options
- Tap on Reset network settings.
A confirmation will pop up. Tap on ‘Reset Network Settings’ again to confirm your decision. This will reboot your device, and once it’s back on, go back into Instagram and check if your story still has a bad quality after re-uploading it.
iOS:
- Go to the Settings app
- Tap on General
- Click on Reset
- Click on Reset Network Settings
