Exporting for platforms: formats, sizes and quality

0:00 Exporting for platforms

Here's a frustrating story many designers know. You spend hours on a carousel. Sharp type, perfect colors, clean layout. You post it, and on your phone it looks blurry, the colors look dull, and the profile grid has chopped off your headline. Nothing was wrong with the design. The export was wrong. The last step ruined the work. In this lecture, you'll learn how to choose the right file format, pixel dimensions and color space, how compression works, what the main platforms expect, how to save export presets, the basics of print, and an export QA pass. By the end, what people see on their phones will match what you designed.

0:48 Why exporting matters

Why does exporting matter so much? Because platforms compress everything you upload, and each file format behaves differently under compression. A few wrong settings can undo hours of careful work. And specs change. Platforms update recommended sizes, grid crops and file limits regularly, so old blog posts and cheat sheets go out of date quickly. Think of exporting like packing a cake for delivery. The cake can be perfect, but if you put it in the wrong box, it arrives squashed. File format, size and color space are the box. Choose the right one for each trip.

1:30 Formats

Let's start with formats. PNG is lossless, great for graphics with text, flat color, logos and transparency. Files are larger, but text stays crisp. JPG is lossy, great for photographs, with small files, but it creates artifacts around sharp text at low quality. WebP and AVIF are modern, efficient web formats, but check platform support. SVG is vector, perfect for logos and icons on websites, but most social platforms don't accept it. PDF is for print, documents and document-style carousel posts. And MP4 is the standard for video and animated posts. Here's the rule of thumb. Text-heavy graphics, PNG. Photos, high-quality JPG. Logos for the web, SVG. Print, PDF.

2:17 Size and resolution

Now size and resolution. Export at the platform's recommended pixel dimensions, or an exact multiple, like ten eighty by thirteen fifty or twenty-one sixty by twenty-seven hundred for four by five. Exporting at two times can keep text sharper after compression, as long as the file stays within upload limits. And here's a myth to retire. DPI or PPI doesn't matter for screens. A ten eighty by thirteen fifty image looks the same whether its metadata says seventy-two or three hundred. Pixel dimensions are what count. DPI only matters for print, where around three hundred pixels per inch at the final print size is a common guideline.

3:04 Color space and compression

Color space and compression. Export in sRGB for social media and the web. Images in wide-gamut profiles or CMYK can look dull or shifted after upload. CMYK or the printer's specified profile is for print only. For compression, use a high JPG quality, often around eighty to ninety percent on most tools' scales. Avoid re-saving JPGs repeatedly, because each save loses more quality, so always export fresh from the design file. Large, flat gradients can band after compression, and adding subtle grain can reduce that. And fine text on photos suffers most from compression, so keep text generous.

3:47 Worked example 1: the fuzzy carousel

Worked example one, simple. A creator says her carousel text looks fuzzy after posting. Let's diagnose. She exported as a JPG at low quality, so we switch to PNG. She exported at five hundred forty pixels wide, half size, so we export at ten eighty, or two times. Her body text was eighteen pixels on a photo, so we raise it to thirty-two pixels and add a scrim. And her phone had a data saver setting on for uploads, so we turn on high-quality uploads. Four small fixes. The result: crisp text and faithful color. Nothing about the design changed. Only the export.

4:32 Worked example 2: a multi-platform launch

Worked example two, a business scenario with illustrative details. An agency in Abu Dhabi launches a product campaign across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn and the client's website. Last time, assets were exported by hand, with inconsistent sizes and names, and two posts went live in the wrong ratio. This time, they build an export specs sheet from the platforms' current help pages, with ratio, working size, format and notes for each placement. They save export presets, name every frame with date, campaign, placement, ratio and version, and run an export QA pass. They upload everything to private test accounts, check the profile grid crop, the link previews and the thumbnail size, and only then schedule the posts. Zero wrong-ratio posts.

5:24 Watch me do it: exporting a feed post

Watch me do it. I'm exporting a feed post from Figma. First, I check the frame: ten eighty by thirteen fifty, four by five. Good. I rename it using our convention: date, campaign, feed, four by five, version three. In the export panel, I choose PNG, because it's text-heavy, and two times, because the file stays within the platform's limit. Figma exports in sRGB by default for this, but I confirm it matches my settings. I export. Then I upload it to our private test account and view it on my phone. The text is crisp, but the profile grid crops the headline slightly, because the grid previews at a taller shape. So I nudge the headline toward the center, re-export, and it passes.

6:18 Print basics

A quick word on print, for when you need it. Print files need bleed, which means extending backgrounds beyond the trim edge, often around three millimeters, so there are no white edges after cutting. Check with your printer. Keep text a few millimeters inside the trim, in a safe margin. Export as PDF with the printer's specified color profile, usually CMYK. And proof your colors, because bright screen colors can look duller in print. Always ask the printer for their specs before you start the design, not after. It's much easier to design with bleed than to add it later.

7:01 Common mistakes

Common mistakes. Exporting text-heavy graphics as low-quality JPGs. Changing DPI and expecting sharper screen images. Exporting in CMYK for Instagram. Relying on outdated size lists from old blog posts. Forgetting the profile grid crop or the link preview crop. Re-saving the same JPG over and over. Exporting with messy filenames nobody can find. And skipping the test upload. Use the export QA pass from the lesson every time. It takes two minutes and protects hours of design work.

7:35 Recap and try this now

Let's recap. Choose the format by content: PNG for text and flat graphics, JPG for photos, PDF for print and document posts, SVG for web logos, MP4 for video. Export at the right pixel dimensions, often two times for text, in sRGB for screens. Avoid repeated compression, save presets, name files clearly, and verify current specs in each platform's official help center before important launches. Then test upload and check every crop. Try this now. Create export presets for the three formats you publish most. Re-export one recent post with the right format, size and sRGB, and compare it with the original after uploading to a private test account. Congratulations on finishing the course lessons.