Image quality & compression

Here you decide how Photogala handles the photos your guests upload: at full original resolution (ideal for professional photography and archives) or as optimized uploads (smaller files, faster loading). It is a deliberate trade-off between image quality on one side and loading speed and storage on the other.

The “Image Quality” tab is gone

A whole tab for one choice read like a decision you had to make. Since the August 2026 rebuild the setting sits where it belongs: in the Gallery features tab, inside the “Media & Upload” fold — right below the video upload switch.

Old links keep working: /admin/settings?tab=image-quality is rewritten to ?tab=feature-settings automatically. You land in the right tab and only have to open the fold.

How to get there

1. Open the admin area of your gallery — via the profile menu at the top right (admin portal) or straight from the admin sidebar. Open the admin area explains how.

2. In the sidebar, under “Event”, pick Settings (route /admin/settings).

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   Settings open on the overview — there is no separate “Image quality” entry any more. ① the tab row with every area – it is wider than the window and scrolls sideways; on a phone only three tabs fit at a time, ② one card per area, each with a line on what it holds, ③ the bar that stays at the bottom: Show preview opens the gallery with your changes, Save changes (just Save on a phone) applies them.

3. Open the Gallery features tab (rocket icon). Direct link: /admin/settings?tab=feature-settings.

4. Open the “Media & Upload” fold — it is the fourth one, below “Interaction & Engagement”, “Downloads” and “Gallery Views”.

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   Two clicks to the target: ① the Gallery features tab, ② the “Media & Upload” fold. The small “1 of 1 active” next to it counts the switches in that fold — it means the video switch; the photo options are not counted.

Faster: use the jump field

Above the tab row sits the field “Jump to a setting on this page…”. Type quality or video and the result list shows Image quality or Video Uploads. Clicking a result switches to the right tab, opens the fold and highlights the setting for a moment — no hunting required. Unsaved changes are not lost in the process.

Who can change this

Only the host (event owner) and admins with settings access see the settings. Moderators usually have no access. More on this in Roles & permissions.

What is inside the fold

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Settings → Gallery features → “Media & Upload”: video switch, video note, and the two photo options below.

The “Media & Upload” fold holds three things, one below the other:

1. The “Video Uploads” card — the switch that lets guests upload videos at all.

2. The video note — it answers the question the switch above it raises (see below).

3. The “Photo Handling” heading with the two photo options.

Note

Because the block is embedded here, it looks leaner than the old dedicated tab: no “Media optimization settings” heading, no intro bullets, no step numbers (“1/2”, “2/2”) and no green recommendation box at the end. The “Video handling” sub-heading is gone as well — the note sits directly under the video card. Only the “Photo Handling” heading remained.

Video handling: a note, nothing else

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① The Video Uploads switch lets guests upload videos. ② The blue box below is pure information: the servers handle video processing, and video compression during upload is not supported — videos land in the gallery at original quality.

There is no quality switch for videos here. The setting below applies to photos only; videos are never affected, whichever option is selected.

Whether guests may upload videos at all is decided by the Video Uploads switch; see Gallery features.

Photo handling: the actual decision

The legend asks: “How should we handle photo uploads?” Below it are exactly two choices (radio buttons — only one can be active):

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1 Choose between Original Quality and Optimized Uploads. 2 Save changes. The choice applies to new uploads from that moment — photos already uploaded are never recalculated.

1. Original Quality — “Best for professional photography (Full resolution)”. Photos are stored exactly as they were uploaded: nothing is resized, nothing is recalculated. This is the default for new galleries and the right choice for photographers, later prints or a long-lived archive. This option requires premium (see below).

2. Optimized Uploads — “Faster loading and smaller sizes (Auto-resized)”. Every photo is shrunk before it is uploaded. While this option is active, the indented Optimization Benefits box appears below it.

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① Optimized Uploads tapped — the dot moves over from “Original Quality”. ② Only now does the Optimization Benefits box unfold; it is pure explanation, there is nothing to configure in it. ③ Nothing is stored yet: that takes Save changes.

Which option for which event

• Optimized Uploads for social/guest events with lots of mobile uploads: faster, saves storage and bandwidth, the gallery feels smoother. The best choice for the vast majority of celebrations.
• Original Quality for professional or photographer galleries where prints or archives follow later and every pixel counts.

What “Optimized Uploads” actually does

The resizing happens in the guest’s browser or on their phone, before the file is even sent — not on the server afterwards. In detail:

• The longest edge is capped at 2048 pixels (2K). A 4032 × 3024 phone photo becomes 2048 × 1536; a photo that is already smaller stays untouched.
• Quality starts at 80 % and is adjusted until the result fits.
• The file format is preserved (JPEG stays JPEG, PNG stays PNG) — nothing is converted into a different format.
• EXIF data is kept in full, including capture time, camera model and GPS position. Orientation (portrait/landscape) is carried over correctly as well.
• If the resizing fails, the original is uploaded instead. No photo is ever lost because of it.

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The moment the setting kicks in: as soon as the guest taps Start upload, every photo is shrunk on the device first and only then transferred. Nothing changes for the guest — the progress bar simply starts a few percent later.

“Automatic format optimization” is misleading

The third bullet in the Optimization Benefits box reads “Automatic format optimization”. That sounds like a conversion to a modern format such as WebP — but no conversion happens: the format of the uploaded file stays as it is. What is meant is the automatic adjustment of size and quality. (The preview sizes the gallery serves later are a different matter — Photogala generates those for every photo regardless of this setting.)

When compression happens anyway — and when it never does

This setting is not the only factor. Three cases behave differently:

1. Without the premium feature, everything is compressed. If “High Quality Uploads” is missing, uploads run optimized even when “Original Quality” is stored. The setting is effectively bypassed until the plan is unlocked.

2. Live Photos and motion pictures are never compressed. For iPhone Live Photos and similar formats, resizing would destroy the motion data — they are always transferred untouched, whichever option is selected.

3. Uploads via FTP, WebDAV or Live Upload bypass the setting. There a camera or a program uploads straight to the server; there is no browser that could shrink anything first. Those files always arrive at full size — even with “Optimized Uploads”. See Live upload (FTP/WebDAV).

What this means for downloads

When downloading, Photogala offers two variants: Original quality (“highest available resolution”) and Web optimized. The word “available” is the important one.

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① The Download options dialog when downloading a single photo. ② Original quality delivers the highest resolution stored for that photo. ③ Web optimized is the smaller version for sharing. ④ The note below explains both variants.

If a photo was stored as an optimized upload, the stored original already is the 2048-pixel version — “Original quality” then returns exactly that. Full camera resolution cannot be restored afterwards. So if large prints are on the agenda, switch to original quality before the event. More on bulk downloads under Download & export.

Saving your changes

1. Pick the photo option you want. That alone does not store it — it only lives in the form.

2. Click Save changes at the bottom right (just Save on a phone). Only then does the setting take effect, for every upload from that moment on.

3. If you leave the page with unsaved changes, a confirmation dialog asks whether you really want to leave without saving.

No red dot as a reminder

Other tabs mark unsaved changes with a red dot (●) in the tab row. After switching the photo option that dot does not appear — saving still works correctly, and the leave-page warning still shows. So don’t rely on the dot; click Save changes deliberately.

The Show preview button opens the live preview of your gallery. Handy for an overall check, but it changes nothing about the quality setting.

Important: new uploads only

Your choice applies to future uploads only. Photos already uploaded are never re-compressed or restored afterwards. Make the decision before the event if you can.

Example: switched mid-event

The party is running, 400 photos are already in the gallery – uploaded under Optimized Uploads. You now pick Original Quality and click Save changes. Result: those 400 photos stay exactly as they are – at 2048 pixels; only what is uploaded from that moment on arrives at full resolution. Nothing is recalculated retroactively – so if you need full resolution for the whole evening, switch before the first photo.

Premium & unlocking

Original Quality is the premium option (feature “High Quality Uploads”). Without the matching plan, a notice panel covers the entire “Photo Handling” block: the two options are only faintly visible behind it and cannot be clicked.

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Without the plan the photo block is locked: the orange panel names the feature High Quality Uploads (“Support for full resolution images”). ① The button below leads to the plan overview — depending on your plan it reads Upgrade tier or just shows the tier information. Uploads always run optimized in this state.

In that case uploads stay optimized — “Original Quality” cannot be selected until the feature is unlocked.

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Whether original quality can be selected at all depends on your plan — check the plan area.

Tip

How to unlock full resolution is covered under Pricing & upgrade.

Edge cases & troubleshooting

• I can’t find the “Image Quality” tab any more. It no longer exists. The setting sits in the Gallery features tab, inside the “Media & Upload” fold. An old link to ?tab=image-quality redirects there automatically.
• I see no photo options in the “Media & Upload” fold at all. For brand-managed (partner-managed) events the quality block is hidden when neither high quality uploads nor video uploads are unlocked. Talk to your partner or consider an upgrade.
• “Original Quality” can’t be clicked. You are missing the premium feature for full resolution; an orange panel covers the block. Until you upgrade, uploads run optimized — see Pricing & upgrade.
• I switched to “Original Quality” and the photos are still 2048 pixels wide. Two possible reasons: the photo was uploaded before you switched, or the event lacks the premium feature — in which case everything is compressed regardless of the setting.
• My FTP uploads are much larger than the ones from the app. That is by design: live upload, FTP and WebDAV go straight to the server, without the on-device resizing.
• Videos are not compressed. That is intentional — video compression on upload is not supported, videos remain at original quality.
• I can’t find a metadata or EXIF option. No such setting exists: EXIF data including GPS survives “Optimized Uploads”, and there is no switch in Photogala that strips it from guest photos. (The opposite does happen — phones themselves sometimes drop GPS on web uploads, which is what the Approximate positions (GPS fallback) option under “Gallery Views” is for.)

Next steps

• Gallery features — the tab this setting lives in today (including video upload)
• Download & export — download originals or all media in bulk (important for archives)
• Live upload (FTP/WebDAV) — the path that bypasses compression
• How guests upload photos and Take a photo
• Neighbouring tabs: General · Appearance · Moderation & safety