How To Easily Fix Bad or Blurry TikTok Video Quality (5 Effective Methods)

How To Easily Fix Bad or Blurry TikTok Video Quality (5 Effective Methods)

If you want to make it on TikTok, there’s just one golden rule: post a lot of content, but more specifically, a lot of high-quality content. However, sometimes your videos just look absolutely terrible, blurry, or pixelated, and bad video quality tends to decrease the value of your TikTok video a lot. If you want to get on that For You page for as many people as possible, having bad TikTok video quality is something you want to avoid completely.

Luckily, there are a few things we can do to improve your TikTok video quality drastically, and fairly easily too.

person holding white samsung galaxy smartphone

In other words, if you’re dealing with this problem, take a look at the steps we’ve detailed below.

Improve your TikTok video quality by disabling data saving mode in the app

Data saving is an absolute lifesaver – especially if you’re on a subscription with a limited data cap.

If you want to upload high-quality TikTok videos, however, data saving mode is absolutely horrendous, and it makes perfect sense. Uploading your videos to TikTok’s servers without full bandwidth will result in the app trying to save some data and process your video in a (much) lower quality.

How to fix blurry TikTok videos

The only thing that data saving mode wants to do, is eliminated as much data as possible to save bandwidth. It will compress TikTok videos by a great and considerable amount, noticeably reducing the video quality in order to save as many megabytes as possible. Reducing cellular usage will most definitely decrease the file quality of your video, which is why you need to turn it off if you want to make good-quality videos.

How To Easily Fix Bad or Blurry TikTok Video Quality (5 Effective Methods)

Note: if you only make or upload TikTok videos at home and you use a Wi-Fi network instead of cellular, the data-saving methods will not be applied, and your video will process at normal quality. But if you’re using cellular, don’t forget to disable Data Saving when uploading a clip. Are your TikTok videos completely blurry when you upload them? Chances are that Data Saver is going to be the culprit.

How to disable “Data Saving” mode in TikTok

Luckily, the process is really simple. Just follow the steps below, and we’ll have you on TikTok with the highest quality videos in no time. If your Data Saver option is already disabled (showing a grey color), you don’t need to do anything here. If it’s green, it’s active.

How To Easily Fix Bad or Blurry TikTok Video Quality (5 Effective Methods)

  1. Open the TikTok app and head over to the “Me” section by pressing the icon at the bottom
  2. Click the icon with the three dots to head over to the settings page
  3. Underneath the section “Cache and cellular data”, you can click on “Data Saver”
  4. Make sure that the toggle for Data Saver is disabled (not green)
  5. Tap the “Back” icon a couple of times to return to the app

Et voila! Both viewing and creating TikTok videos will be of much higher quality now that your data isn’t being capped and compressed anymore.

Want to further improve your TikTok video quality? Let’s take a look at what else we can do.

How to improve TikTok video quality

Top-quality video footage will definitely add to your video. In fact, a lot of large content creators on the platform use dedicated video cameras or DLSR cameras to film their TikToks, and edit it afterward on their pc. Of course, creating the TikToks with your smartphone is still the easiest (and fastest) way, so that’s what we’re going to focus on right now.

Make sure that your camera settings are optimized

If you’re someone who shoots footage on their camera first before uploading to TikTok, this might be a useful tip. Make sure that your camera settings are correct – ideally, you’d want to have a resolution of 1080p or higher, and 30 frames or higher.

A quick protip: if you’re shooting content in low lighting conditions, it might actually be better to choose a lower resolution such as 1080p or 720p instead of 4K. A lower resolution means fewer pixels, which also means that the individual pixels will be able to capture more light – ideal when your lighting isn’t.

How To Easily Fix Bad or Blurry TikTok Video Quality (5 Effective Methods)

Consider a more powerful or better camera

Unfortunately, not all phones on the market have an absolutely excellent camera (or cameras, nowadays) straight out of the gate. It can also be quite hard to figure out which devices actually have the best cameras, although you usually can not go wrong with the Apple iPhones and some of the more well-known Android smartphones, such as Samsung Galaxy devices or Google Pixels.

Research reviews and camera tests before you buy your next smartphone to keep the camera quality and performance in mind.

Black Dslr Camera

If you need a significant source of unbiased smartphone camera reviews, be sure to check out the awesome and detailed roundups and comparisons from DxOMark.

As a general tip: tablets tend to have underperforming cameras compared to smartphones, even if we’re talking about more expensive tablets such as the iPad Pro or Galaxy Tab series. Stick to filming with a smartphone (or a DSLR/mirrorless camera if you really want to have the absolute best quality).

And if you’re shooting action-type videos (in first person), opting for a decent action camera (think GoPro and others) will also make a ton of difference. Also make sure that you shoot video in 1080p, as TikTok doesn’t support higher resolutions and 2K or 4K filming can cause additional graininess, especially in low light conditions.

Switch to your rear-side camera

Selfie or front cameras are super convenient, but let’s be honest, they’re nowhere near as good as the cameras you have on the back of your phone. Not only are they often higher resolution, but their lenses are much more sophisticated, you’ll be able to pick up much more light and image quality, and you can also use periscope, zoom, and ultrawide lenses if you switch your focus to the back of your phone.

However, even though you’ll have plenty of options to choose from if you’ve got multiple lenses, we would recommend sticking with the regular rear-side camera and not going too overboard with periscope, zoom, or ultrawide lenses. While these definitely have their benefits, the regular camera will still give you the best possible quality for your TikTok videos.

Use a tripod or ask someone to film you with the back camera to improve your stability, which makes your video also look a lot more professional. Not only video quality is important, the production quality is as well!

How To Easily Fix Bad or Blurry TikTok Video Quality (5 Effective Methods)
Source: Apple.com

Improve your lighting conditions

A lot of photographers will say it over and over again – lighting really is everything. Perhaps it’d be a good idea to pick up on a few photography and videography courses on YouTube, just to learn how you can work with different light sources or what to do when you’re in an environment with less than ideal conditions.

You don’t need a whole lot to improve your lighting conditions, sometimes just another position in your home to record can do absolute wonders. Always try to use daylight as a lighting source.

If you’re shooting in a low-light environment combined with a lower-quality camera, you can be assured that the TikTok video will be more grainy and of lower quality than usual.

Another thing you can do, is considering to get a ring light or another type of illumination as a light source (such as softboxes or RGB video LEDs) for your videos? The difference lighting can make is mesmerizing, and decent lighting can even make a bad camera look good. When you’re shooting at night, external lights are going to help out a ton. We’ve listed a couple of our recommendations below.

10'' Ring Light with 50'' Extendable Tripod Stand and Remote

Our recommended ring light to improve the lighting quality of your TikTok videos. A top-rated bestseller with included power adapter, Bluetooth remote control, three different color modes, and a tripod stand extendable up to 50 inches.

Portable RGB LED camera light

Looking to give your TikTok videos better lighting, or would you like to use some different colored light sources? This portable RGB LED camera light can attach to tripods and can stand on its own. Simply recharge the battery with the included cable, and you’re good to go.

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Paul Alexander

About the author

Paul Alexander has a Master of Science degree in Communication Studies and is a licensed teacher in Flanders, Belgium. He's been passionate about writing and technology ever since he was little and has more than ten years of experience in the vastly interesting world of consumer electronics and social media. He is also the founder of ByteHaps.com.

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