Facebook launches a major update to the photos section. What started off as an after-thought and has been for many years a second-tier interest at the company, despite its huge popularity, is now finally a real threat to photo sharing services out there.
With just a couple of changes, Facebook photos now squarely targets Flickr, not to mention Google Picasa and other service out there.
The new look for Facebook photo viewing, which does not require a new page to be loaded each time a new photo is selected.
Users will be able to upload and view high resolution photos on the social network. Images were limited to 720 pixels across until now. Users will soon be able to upload images as big as 2048 pixels wide or tall, whichever is the biggest.
The second big update is the new photo viewer, designed to accommodate the larger images and make the whole experience much more immersive. Finally, the heavily criticized photo uploader has been rewritten from scratch.
“When we originally got started on Photos, we only had two people working on it. We didn’t build out a lot of features; we just focused on making sure photos were easy to share and this made Photos a great social experience,” Sam Odio, product manager for Facebook Photos, wrote.
“But we also wanted to give people on Facebook the best quality photo product on the web,” he added.
“So I’m excited to announce three big improvements to Photos: high resolution images so you can store bigger pictures, a better viewer for browsing photos, and a simpler uploader when you have lots of images,” he announced.
Photos can be 8x larger
The new photo size limit is 2048 pixels on Facebook. Photos larger than that will be scaled down, but it’s more than enough for most images. The new limit is an eight-times increase in the photo’s overall surface.
Of course, most people don’t have the monitors to display the images at this size so you’ll see a smaller image. But they will be stored at their largest size on the servers and there will be a download link on all photos to save them at their original size on your computer.
A new light box photo viewer
Larger images mean nothing if you can’t view them so, thankfully, Facebook has introduced a new photo viewer as well. Clicking on any image anywhere will open it inside the page at its full size in the new photo overlay.
You can navigate the entire album from it, see the comments, share it with others, all the activities you’d normally expect. The black background, similar to the new Flickr light box, doesn’t steal the attention away from the photo.
A rewritten Flash-based, photo uploader
Finally, there is also a new, Flash-based uploader to simplify the process. There have been plenty of complaints about the photo upload tools Facebook has provided in the past so, hopefully, this one does a better job.
One interesting thing about it is that it enables you to tag photos in bulk, very useful for a large number of photos of the same event. It’s also easier to tag the same friend in different photos, Facebook says.
The new features will be rolled out to each of Facebook’s 500 million users in the coming month. With billions of photos already available on the site and millions added each day, the changes are sure to have a huge impact.
Don’t miss to read the comments to get rid of the Black box. :)
Nobody has advice on how to remove the damn black thing! Somehow I did it, on one of my business pages, so it’s possible. The fact is that the format loses fans, being a pop-up, resizes images (typically smaller on mine), and viewers miss the comment box.
To get rid of the black box, right click on it and then click “reload”. If using an Apple, press F5
so there isn’t a way to set photo viewer to the way it used to be instead of with the black background?
I DONT WANT THE BLACK BOX…How Do I Get Rid Of It? I Want My Old Facebook Back Where I Can Actually SEE My Pictures.
did you find out how to get rid of the black box I have it now please help
No idea guys, but i seem to be stuck with the old style and not the black box, trying to figure out what the difference is, have two accounts on laptop with fb and one has blackboxes and the other MINE has the old style, been searching high and low for answers why this can occur.. no luck so far…
this “Facebook Photo Viewer Pop Up Windos” Sucks, they can add the download photo link in the old one for people who needs to see a larger view or for print use… but this Facebook PopUp Photo really sucks…
it isn’t the black box i hate, but how small the pictures are while viewing them! ugh, hate it
This changes absolutely sucks, like most FB changes. I have no idea who tells their engineers these are improvements when they clearly eliminate features and make the photos impossible to view full size as best I can tell.
FU Fascistbook.
To get rid of the black box, you just have to open the picture in a new tab all the time. In the main gallery, right click the thumbnail you want to open and click Open in a new tab. It works on firefox!
Thanks for that. Been driving me crazy!
Thank you J, it’s work for me … Now the black box is gone :D
THANK YOU so much! much better now. i do understand what they are trying to do, and if it wasn’t for the pics looking small i would not mind the change ;-)
THANK YOU! Facebook, this black thing is the worst thing ever and I hate it and it is really bad and you should get rid of it. Also it sucks.
F5 makes the box disappear
You can get rid of the black box viewer by refreshing your page while looking at the photos. Mind you, you will have to do this often.
And yes, I also agree with everyone else; this has been a terrible update to Facebook, unless of course you are only uploading high-res or large photos in which case it works in your favour…however most people are not so it seems pointless.
Worked by opening in new tab yesterday but will not work today but has worked your way – thanks.
Temporary Solution:
To disable the new Photo Viewer simply delete “&theater” from the end of the URL and press enter, the page will reload the image in the old photo viewer and from there you can click next and back for each picture and it’ll stay in the old viewer, you only have to do this each time the new photo viewer displays then it will stay at the old viewer until you click off the page.
THANK YOU so much for telling us this. It works wonderfully – back to the old way! Yay!!! Just wish it was a permanent fix. Seriously, why are upgrades never actual improvements?!? Who makes these decisions? Don’t they test market things? Surely this wouldn’t have passed!?
For netbook users, the photos are half the size that they used to be and so, in many cases, it makes for very poor viewing. Have already opened a FlickR account, which is not ideal.
The black photo viewer doesnt allow you to save pictures. Facebook gets worse with each “upgrade”
I agree!
actually, it does. there’s a link on each below the black box on the left side to “download the photo.” bam!
It’s a bogus app I got an email for a few apps one being check who’s stalking me I clicked the link but no app was there there was another one that I got as well. Then photos went like that with the black box. I just deleted my newest apps and it’s back to normal…. I can’t remember which one it was but will try to recreate so I can figure out what the apps called
this new viewer is just some cheap a$$ slide viewer that reduces legibility of the photo, makes it smaller, and screws up the comments so you can hardly read them without ruining your eyes. Someone said, oh youll like it after your used to the change…NO, Ill become ACCUSTOMED to it, but thats not the same as liking it, why like something that cheapens the experience?
new visually repellent facebook Photo Viewer, in the url bar at the end of the address string you can highlight and delete “&THEATER” an hit ENTER then you can then view photo in old format, its just a fix and and you have to do it for every picture it doesn’t solve the annoying problem but its all i could find to change it..
this should be optional…..i don’t like it….. why make this social network dumb……..soon there will be charging users…..i can smell this….soon it will be forgotten as HI 5 …….
I hate the new facebook photo viewer. I hope someone that works for facebook is reading this. I hate it.
just click f5 after you open the photo and it will enlarge
I HATE IT. change it back. it looks stupid and i can’t click to make the pics bigger. who the hell thought of this bs?
Facebook has now entered its MySpace phase….it’s just a matter of time until the next big idea blows it out of the water.
it should be Optional!!!
I agree facebook is gonna be over sooo soon if they dont get there shit together. I honestly can’t wait til someone with fresh ideas who actually listens to their target market comes around
This is absurd FB. The smaller pictures w/black background is very annoying. As many users as you have seems like you would have given us a choice. We are not children I want my pic back like there were dammit!!!!
Thank You, I saved my nerves from that black-shit. After erasing “&THEATER” I’m happy.
Thank you so much for the “&theatre” advice. Been struggling for a while on my mac trying to figure out how to save photos from new photo fb to iphoto. Now i can!
I have a solution for firefox users!
install greasemonkey addon
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/greasemonkey/
then install this script
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/97078
YEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWW!
Il y a 6 minutes15:50 · Modifier le message · Effacer le message
I like everything about this… Except the black box. That black box drives me crazy. I wish it was white! If they just change it to white I’ll be soOOoooo happy.
Anyone know how to get out of the black box on a cell phone?
Once you select the photo to view and it gets to that annoying black box, hit “F5″ to refresh. This will allow you to view photos like before the FB upgrade. It will stay in this format until you exit the album.
When I view photos in this new “upgraded” version I see the photo overlapping with my FB profile page … so I can’t read the comments and such. Very annoying.
COME ON FB PROGRAMMERS … let’s give your users OPTIONS please!
But AFAIK many users don’t like this update coz this slows down the performance
What the crap is with the facebook photo sharing with the black box i can only see 1/4 of my uploaded pics, which I think is crap they should put it back the way it was or fix it.
I don’t like it at all. Not only is it bothersome while I am on a computer, it’s also not phone user friendly and I cannot tag my friends in photos because it will not allow me.
I believe saving the pictures is a FIREFOX issue.
If I go to Facebook with Internet Explorer I can save pictures as always, even if the black is showing, but it does not save the black. If I go to Facebook with FireFox it is only “BOOKMARK THIS PAGE” or “SAVE PAGE AS”
Hope this helps some of you!
I feel like such a FOOL!!!
Down on the bottom, left corner there is a click – DOWNLOAD.
This will save your picture no matter if you are using Firefox or Explorer.
Happy CLICKING everyone!
I HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE THE BLACK BOX!!
not visually pleasing at all! would really like to delete it permanently!
Yeah – I didn’t like the black box either,
but now it looks like the new max pics size is: 960px
- No doubt this will change as fb can’t stay the same for too long
Hi Sofia,
thanks for the update on the improvements facebook is making with uploading photos. It should make the process a lot easier.