Computer help forum: Photos online suddenly low quality, help

Thanks for the reply!

Actually, I just tried it and it is sharp. The site is flickr, and they are full HQ images. I actually just saved one of my own pics and looking at them side by side shows a crazy difference in image quality. This was never like this before, and that's why I use flickr, because of the quality of the images after upload. ...and while I know facebook reduces quality on uploads, they are also way worse that they were two days ago. It's like something in a setting is making my online viewing horrible. 500px is the same way. It's frustrating because I upload pics that look nice & sharp, and I can't even enjoy looking at them online anymore.

I guess I should clarify my last post...

I saved one of my own images from the flickr site, then opened it up (offline) and compared it to the one on flickr. The saved one looks great, the one on flickr that I saved it from still looks bad.

Since you have both the original file and the picture you uploaded and downloaded it's easy to compare details like filesize (at least 1 MB for a good picture) and resolution (a*b pixels, something like 3000*2000 for a good picture). Then you can see if these 2 versions are identical or that flickr changed the uploaded copy.

Then to be sure it's flickr and not your PC, download the same picture from flickr on another PC (friend, family, work) and look at that same attributes.

Kees

OK, the photos on flickr looked perfect on another computer and 2 smartphones, so what happened to my computer to cause this? ...and better yet, any clue on how to fix it?

That might not be that case, but maybe you should try re-installing your browser, but don't forget to uninstall it first.

The first thing to try would be to uninstall then reinstall the software that you have been using to see if it might be the issue. I saw that you are using Flickr, which is typically a pretty good thing to use. If the reinstall doesn't help, you might want to download Picasa and see how it reacts under the same circumstances. From what you have described I am leaning more toward software but it could be a hardware issue, first things first, I'd try uninstall reinstall. Good luck!!!!