Facebook Finally Allows High-Res Image Uploading

People love Facebook, but believe it or not there are actually some things it doesn’t do very well.

Like messaging, for example. You’re logged into Facebook, playing Farmville or posting about how you think you have a case of the mondays. You decide to send me a message, and you’re logged in so you send me a Facebook message, because otherwise you’d have to log in to webmail too.

I’m not logged into Facebook, so I receive an email notification that shows me your message. Rather than hit ‘reply’ I now have to log into Facebook to reply to your message. In case it’s not obvious, this process makes me want to claw my own eyeballs out of my head.

And that’s not even taking into account that Facebook messaging replaces email and doesn’t even include basic features email has boasted for years, such as blind carbon copies, message rules and signatures.

Images and photo galleries is something else Facebook is widely used for, yet does an extremely poor job at.

When you upload an image to Flickr, the file name is maintained, along with the original file size and all exif data along with the image. This is one of the great features of Flickr that allows you to search all images taken with a Canon D90, or any images with an exposure of 1/13 for example.

Facebook allows you to upload images, but at the point you upload them they resize them, rename them, strip them of any data that links the photo to you and then reluctantly displays them to you and your friends.

Well, Facebook is finally righting one of it’s lesser wrongs, and now allows high-res images to be uploaded and displayed. Previously images were downsized to 720 pixels, but the maximum is now 2048 pixels, nearly eight times the total size.

Galleries now have a lightbox feature too. These features should be with you sometime today. Thanks for sucking a little less, Facebook!