Instagram Now Storing Higher Resolution Photos

Good news for Instagram fans, or just users who are tired of the social network's small resolution for displaying photos: the service is now storing images at a size of 1080 x 1080 pixels, a big increase over the previous 640 x 640 resolution. Unfortunately, both the mobiles apps and Instagram's website are still displaying photos at the smaller size by default, but it was discovered that the larger sizes can still be found by playing around with the web view's source code.

It's not clear exactly when they started, but recent uploads to Instagram are stored at 1080 x 1080 pixels. As The Verge notes, users on the website can check the source code to find the new max resolution. Hopefully this means an update to the service is coming soon that will see photos displayed at a larger size, with the recent uploads getting switched to the higher resolution once the site's changes are in place.

There's been no official word from Instagram on the issue yet, and their last comments still referred to images at the social network's standard 640 x 640 size. Those who use the service from their smartphones regularly should know that photos taken with both the iOS and Android apps are being stored at the higher resolution.

To view the larger versions of recently uploaded photos, get the image's page on the Instagram website, choose to view the source HTML code in the desktop browser, and then use the Find feature (CTRL/CMD+F) to search for ".jpg." The first result will be a URL to the larger image. Voila! The increased resolution photos are not only much more pleasing to look at, but they'll make for better prints too.

SOURCE The Verge