Placement resolution

What the free cap is, why the preview is always sharp, and how upgrading re-places an existing fit at full resolution without moving anything.

The plugin has one delivery path for stills: Place on canvas. It writes an image node into your file next to the design. There is no export step. Once the image is on the canvas, Figma’s own export gives you a PNG at any multiplier.

The cap

On the free tier the placed image is downscaled to 1024 px on its long edge before it reaches the document; the button says so: Place, 1024 px. Pro and Studio place at the photograph’s full resolution.

The preview inside the plugin is full resolution on every tier. You see exactly what Pro will place before you decide. The cap is on what enters the file, not on what you can look at.

Why 1024

Sharp enough to use in a doc, a Slack thread, a Notion page or a deck at screen size. Soft on a portfolio shot at retina (a Dribbble upload is 1600 × 1200), which is the point at which the work is being delivered, and the point at which Pro is worth it.

Re-placing at full resolution after upgrading

Fits are remembered per photograph, and so is the node each one was placed on. After you upgrade and sign in, Settings → Placed at 1024 px lists them. Replace at full resolution swaps each node’s fill in place: same position, same size on the canvas, same fit, full pixels. You don’t re-fit, and nothing in your layout moves.

What resolution to expect

The composite is the photograph’s resolution. The screen region carries as much detail as the smaller of two things: the pixels the screen occupies in the photo, and the screenshot you brought. A 12 MP phone photo with the device filling a third of the frame gives a screen region of roughly 1,200-1,500 px on its long edge, which is plenty; the same phone small in a wide shot gives far less. Frame the device large. The scene recipes cover this for generated scenes, and it applies to a camera the same way.

Video

Video has no cap because it has no canvas export: Figma can’t write an MP4 out of a file. On free you can fit a recording and play it in the plugin at full resolution; Download and Place video on canvas are Pro. See video.