Blurry Pixelated Photos on Airbnb

[Trinette---Chris0]

Can anyone help me understand why my photos are so pixelated/ soft/ blurry on airbnb? I am actually a professional photographer using a high end camera, uploading jpegs that are 2400 pixels on the longest side, they look great on my huge monitor in photoshop, but then when I upload them to the airbnb site, they look terrible and pixelated and soft. Obviously they are being processed by Airbnb to down sample them. Can anything be done about this? Also I notice vertical photos look terrible on an ipad and some computers, verticals look much worse then horizontals, but they all look bad. My intro photo looks very soft too. 

[Daria20]

@Trinette---Chris0

I have the same problem for some of them (not all though!). Would love to hear possible reasons here so I could fix it. 

[Maksim4]

Hi there guys,

Did you manage to find a solution to this problem?

Actually my problem is that Airbnb did an initial photoshoot of my property, and uploaded their photographs to my profile, which were all sharp. Then, well, before the co-hosting feature was made available, I wanted to transfer the hosting obligation to another family member, who made another profile at Airbnb, while I disabled mine. Since we could not ask Airbnb to invest in another photoshoot of our property, we simply downloaded the photographs from the now-disabled-property, and uploaded them to the new one. They came up quite blurry unfortunately, although when I am previewing them on my PC, they are still great. Any solution to this? I would really my appreciate any help. Thanks a lot 🙂

Best regards,

Maksim

[Keely-N-Derek0]

Hi Guys, i assuming this topic has gone a little stale since there has been no conversation since August.  This is a very frustrating situation for all of us for sure!  After spending hours and hours on shooting and photoshop, only to be slapped down by AirBnb.  Has anyone received an answer from AirBnb?

Thank You!

Derek

[Trinette---Chris0]

Nothing has changed on this. I assume they down res the images to make them faster to load, but they look so terrible and pixelated, I don't get it because VRBO photos are full res and look AMAZING in comparison to Airbnb photos. I uploaded the same exact photos to both platforms, the ones on VRBO look perfect and beautiful as they should and the Airbnb ones just look awlful and pixelated, it makes them look like low quality photos and they are not, they were professional shot and high res photos. They are doing something to degrade them after you upload them, which probably means they have all the high res files somewhere on their server so they could probably make the switch easily.  Be sure to send your feedback on this issue to Airbnb https://www.airbnb.com/help/feedback and voice your concerns, they more they hear about this from people, then they will change it and make the photos better looking. Right now, not enough people are complaining about it, so they just leave it the way it is. 

[Matthew285]

@Keely-N-Derek0

I think there hasn't been much discussion because there hasn't been much to discover except:

1. Photos should be at least 1024 x 683px
2. An aspect ratio of 1.5:1 seems to keep the system from distorting your photo
3. People feel wide photos look better when viewed in a browser
4. Experiment with what makes your photos look great both in a browser window and in the app

At least that's all I could find.

[Keely-N-Derek0]

Thanks for the feedback, its unfortunate.  I have experimented with multiple sizes (but keeping within the requiered minimum), not editing a photo, four different ways of sharpening, and three different export or "save for web" options from Photoshop.  Only to be back right where we started...low res photos.

Thanks for your help, off to AirBnb customer service I go..wish me luck! 

[Matthew285]

@Keely-N-Derek0 if the photos in question are for the listing "Keystone Lake Condo/Lakeshore #1554"

I think the photos already look pretty darned good. I know as a photographer with a discerning eye, for you they may not look as good as they do in your original files.

But I can't imagine any guest looking at those photos and thinking anything but "wow what a great looking place."

[Wesley-and-Vikki0]

Photographer too here experiencing the same thing. It amazes me that a tech co. in the Bay has this issue but then Facebook makes photos look awful too. I might try the 1.5/1 ratio or the PNG solutions recommended by others on here but this is unacceptable. I'd still stay at your gorgeous place in Graton, though!

[Mette12]

Ditto, ditto, ditto. I'm just wondering if colour space would make any difference. I am exporting from Lightroom and PNG isnt an option unfortunately.  I have compared regular listings to Plus listings and the Plus listings have far crisper photos but you view them as smaller photos tho. 

[Alexandre1095]

It's 2022 now and I still find this to be a problem.  What's the trick? 

[Trinette---Chris0]

Unfortunately there is no trick. They resize them and it makes them blurry. I have not found a solution, I have just come to accept them as slightly blurry.