Whatsapp gives photos an HD upgrade: How to use it

Messenger
No more Whatsapp pixel mud: How to use the new HD upgrade for photos

If you send pictures via Whatsapp, they often look underground. That is finally changing.

“Mark has sent a photo”: What still triggers joy in the notification on the display can be opened in Whatsapp quickly turn into frustration. Even the most beautiful photos are often downscaled to pixel mud by Messenger. But that seems to have come to an end now. Whatsapp gets an HD upgrade.

This was announced by Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg personally. “Sending pictures on Whatsapp just got an upgrade,” he wrote on his channel on Whatsapp’s sister app, Instagram. “You can now also send them in HD.”

HD upgrade for whatsapp photos

In a video, the boss shows how it works. If you take a photo with the messenger’s internal camera or select one from a list of available images, a small “HD” symbol will now appear at the top. If you tap on it, you can choose whether you want to send the standard resolution or a version with a higher resolution. In both cases, Whatsapp specifically states the resolution of the respective image.

The upgrade is actually visible. In test photos of star the resolution increased from about 2048 x 1536 to up to 5120 x 3840 pixels. That’s more than six times the original resolution. Especially in detailed images such as group photos or landscape shots, you can see much more if you zoom into the received image. So far, this has often not been the case.

However, the prerequisite is that the template also provides this. If the selected image is not of high enough resolution – for example because you received it yourself via Whatsapp – the messenger can of course not work miracles. But he’s not faking it either: in this case, the interface simply doesn’t offer the HD icon.

update needed

In order to be able to use the HD upgrade, the current version of the messenger must be installed. However, this does not automatically mean that the HD function will also appear immediately. Whatsapp rolls them out in waves. If you don’t find the feature even with sufficiently high-resolution photos, you have to be patient. The high-resolution photos can also be received without an update.

Source: Whatsapp