WhatsApp: HD photo sharing finally possible

WhatsApp is finally adding the possibility of sharing high-quality photos in chats, a function that many of its two billion users around the world have been waiting for for a long time.

And this is a big change because the photos shared in WhatsApp messages are deemed to be of poor quality. Why? Because the mail service strongly compresses them. This was not a problem at the time of the Blackberry and the iPhone 4, but with the improvement of smartphone cameras and the increase in screen resolution, it has become very visible and frankly annoying.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, recently shared this new feature on Facebook,: “The sharing of photos on WhatsApp has just been improved – now you can send them in HD.”High-quality image sharing is currently only available for photos, not videos. And here’s how to do it!

How to share high-quality photos on WhatsApp

Maria Diaz/ZDNET

What you will need: A smartphone with the latest version of WhatsApp (I have version 2.23.15.78).

Open a chat

Open the chat in which you want to share the HD photos.

Tap on the + button to share

Tap on the share button in the chat, which is the plus sign (+) in the lower left corner of the chat window.

Screenshot: Maria Diaz/ZDNET

Choose Photo Library and Video Library

Select Photo and Video library to choose an image to share in the chat. You access the photo gallery of your phone.

Screenshot: Maria Diaz/ZDNET

Select your photo

Choose the image to share from your photo library and tap on it.

Screenshot: Maria Diaz/ZDNET

Tap on HD

Once you have selected your image, press the HD button to send it in high quality. The HD button is one of the menu options located at the top of your photo.

Remember that selecting HD before sending a photo will not change the WhatsApp settings, so the images you send later will be of standard quality by default. You need to select HD every time you want to send a high-quality photo.

Screenshot: Maria Diaz/ZDNET

Select HD quality

When you tap on HD, a pop-up window appears with the option to send the photo in standard quality or in HD quality. Tap on HD Quality.

Even though HD photos have a higher resolution and are clearer, they take up more storage space and take a little longer to send, which is why WhatsApp compresses them by default.