Washed out images on Instagram

[malcolm]

I can spend hours making a lovely richly coloured photo, but when I upload it to Instagram it ends up with totally flat colours and the brightness turned up to 50. I fear my photography career might not take off.

I've looked at the internet and there is surprisingly little discussion. I've got a picture on my desktop looking lush. Uploaded it to another website and it looks just the same. On Instagram viewed in desktop it looks washed out. On the phone on Instagram it looks oversaturated. I'm using sRGB and edited in Gimp. Uploaded using Android.

Has anyone on here been there and figured something out? It's not monitor calibration if other websites work. Is there a button on Instagram for 'don't mess up my photo'?

 

[jimbo84]

Think it's to do with compression when uploading it to instagram, Mine always look great on the editor in instagram before uploading then on upload they never look as good as original.

 

[Tangledfeet]

I'd happily pay for an Instagram 'Pro', if there were one. I use it more than Facebook and I reckon that for every five posts from people I follow there is one sponsored advert. Having a paid for version might also enable more storage and this less compression?

 

[JonE]

There's a comment in this reddit thread that suggests changing your colour space before uploading. Worth a shot?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Instagram/comments/873ew6/normal_filter_being_applied_by_default_unable_to/

 

[malcolm]

Think it's to do with compression when uploading it to instagram, Mine always look great on the editor in instagram before uploading then on upload they never look as good as original.

Exactly the same thing here.

There's a comment in this reddit thread that suggests changing your colour space before uploading. Worth a shot?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Instagram/comments/873ew6/normal_filter_being_applied_by_default_unable_to/

I'm in sRGB, and have tried that in a couple of editors. Probably I should try one straight from the phone unedited. The thing I don't understand is the people commenting on these Reddit threads are presumably photographers, so if they don't notice the problem it can't be affecting everyone.

 

[Farside]

From what I saw of Instagram the whole schtick about it was a supposedly 'vintage' and 'edgy' alternative look, like old, faded, bleached prints, etc.
It was something I avoided. I'd spent years trying to make decent images, why would I want to put them up on a site that's going to sorely abuse them?