How to send origial quality uncompressed images via WhatsApp
“Or you send me the photos via WhatsApp”, she said after we realized there was no practical way I could send her the raw pictures to her phone from the camera. “No, just WhatsApp me your gmail, WhatsApp compresses photos”, I told her. She wasn’t the only one who had wanted to receive raw photos immediately after the photoshoot, most of my clients always want to receive them raw, so that after going through them, she would suggest the pictures she needed edited. On a few occasions though I found myself in a situation where I could not share the raw photos with the client, either because her phone can’t work with Xender, she doesn’t have enough memory in the phone, or she doesn’t have a phone altogether. WhatsApp is normally their preferred medium for transfer, but I always refuse because after WhatsApp compresses the images, the quality of the pictures at her end may make her think that the pictures are of low quality.
That’s why when this morning I came across this tweet by @DrKanyuira explaining just how an image can be sent through WhatsApp without the image getting compressed, I got elated. Going forward, it is going to be very simple to share original quality uncompressed images via WhatsApp, although this method is not going to help those clients who still want to receive the images on their WhatsApp but do not have sufficient storage in their phones. Typically, the original JPG images that I take are of the 7 to 10 MBs size, hence only 100 of such images will eat up 1GB of space. My photography session however produces 150 to 200 pictures for a two hour photoshoot, so I always require clients to have no less than 2GB of free space on their phones, especially when they want to receive the images through Xender or just direct transfer using removable memory card. This requirement will now hold true even if they will insist on receiving the images via WhatsApp as going forward, I will only be sending the uncompressed versions of the images.
The method of sending uncompressed images via WhatsApp as revealed by @DrKanyuira is pretty simple – you just have to send the image through the process of sending Files. The process takes the following steps:
- Open chat window of the person you want to send the image to
- Click on the Attach Files icon
- Choose Document
- Navigate to the folder where the image is stored – Probably DCIM if the picture you want to take was captured by the phone’s camera
- Select The Image
- Send.
WhatsApp cheat code on sending high quality images.
Thread.— Kikuyu Pipes (@DrKanyuira) August 12, 2019
Once chosen, WhatsApp will send the image without compressing it, whether the image size is 10MB or 2ooKB.
