WhatsApp Finally Lets Users Send High-Definition Photos
WhatsApp, a Meta-owned app, is finally letting users share high definition (HD) quality photos — with support for HD videos reportedly coming soon too.
On Thursday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the launch of a new WhatsApp feature that would allow users to send higher-quality photos through the messaging app.
“Sharing photos on WhatsApp just got an upgrade — now you can send in HD.” Zuckerberg announces in a Facebook post.
According to The Verge, the feature is rolling out worldwide over the next few weeks.
WhatsApp users will be able to preserve the HD resolution of photos they share with friends and family on Android, iOS, or the web. Recipients on any platform will see a small icon that indicates that the photo received is HD.
The new feature does not work with videos as yet. However, The Verge reports that Meta says that support for HD videos is coming soon after.
To access the new feature, WhatsApp users will first need to update the app to the latest version.
After doing so, users will see a new “HD” button at the top of the photo-sharing screen next to the other image editing tools like “Rotate” and the icons for adding text and stickers to the photo.
To activate the HD feature, users will need to select a photo as they would normally do to share via the app. They will then need to tap and select “HD quality” to activate the feature.
The photo will be shared in 3072 x 4080 resolution, as opposed to the usual compressed 1536 x 2040 used by WhatsApp.
While the photo is still compressed, WhatsApp will not greatly reduce the resolution on shared images as it did previously.
However, by default, WhatsApp still sends photos in “Standard Quality” — unless the “HD quality” option is selected.
According to WhatsApp, this default “Standard quality” setting was selected to ensure that sharing photos remains fast and reliable on the messaging app.
In January, PetaPixel reported that WhatsApp seemed to be working on a feature that let users share photos in their original quality without any compression.
In screenshots posted by WABetaInfo, a new setting that enabled users to configure the quality of any photo in the drawing tool header on the app was available through the Android beta version of WhatsApp and the TestFlight app on iOS.
Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.
