High image quality is a very simple way to make your photographed designs feel polished. A pixelated image or a blown out background can drastically decrease the level of professionalism and craft in your portfolio. Verifying your images meet not only your standards, but the standards that online content demands, will keep your work at its highest quality across social media and digital platforms.

To guarantee that your work is being seen at its best, here are some strategies to ensure your image is at its highest quality.

1. Get the Full Image from Your Photographer

This tip is common sense, but that is what makes it so important to note! Make sure that the image you receive from your photographer is at its full size and highest resolution. If it is a thumbnail, or some other version of the image that is not the original, ask them for the original.

Confirm it is at the dimension you want and listed as the correct file type. If a photographer does not send a .jpg or .png version of the image, request one. If the image looks blurry, pixelated, or out of focus, discuss with them why this may have happened, and try to get the highest quality version that you can.

2. Make Sure It Is at least 1080 pixels on Its Shortest Side

In 2015, Instagram increased its minimum pixel size to 1080 pixels. This increase had a chain reaction, and most images now need to be above this size to display at a high quality on most digital platforms.

While Dering Hall is not subject to Instagram’s sizing rules, if your image is featured on our Instagram - or anyone else’s Instagram - it will have to meet these standards. To ensure the maximum exposure of your work, your images must exceed or meet this minimum sizing to be shared across digital platforms.

3. Do Not Use a Border or Watermark

Stolen designs are a big issue, and we understand the concern designers have to keep their designs attributed to them. However, using borders or watermarks on images detracts from the work itself, making it hard to focus on what we are supposed to be looking at.

Images with these additions cannot be featured in our Editorial section and cannot be used on our Instagram. To be certain you are getting the most out of your Dering Hall membership, avoiding watermarking and borders can make you an ideal candidate for even more features, exposure, and reach.

4. Look at the Image on a Full Screen Monitor, Phone, and Tablet before Uploading

Looking at your image on a different device or screen size can give you new eyes for an image you have been staring at for hours. It can allow you to see if it is pixelated, blown out, out of focus, too dull, too bright, etc..

Since Dering Hall is available on a variety of devices, your image will be seen on many different sized screens. This exercise can give you an opportunity to see if the stand-out moments you wanted to have in your designs are still translating on smaller screens.

Making sure your work can function in several kinds of digital mediums while maintaining its quality and professionalism is now a cornerstone of high-end design. This extra effort to guarantee your image is the right size and resolution will pay off as your portfolio images will be capable of floating across the many platforms that can help you grow.