Facebook has updated its ability to store high resolution photos and made improvements to viewing, bulk tagging, and uploading images. The photo quality improvements should be available for some people today, with the other new features rolling out over the next month.

The improvements mean users can soon upload higher resolution images: up to 2048 pixels on the largest edge (for those keeping count, that's about 3.1MP, or enough to print out a 5x7 print at 300 DPI), compared to the previous 720 pixels limit. The site is also planning to launch a faster and smoother new photo viewer that opens over the main Facebook page. It allows users to browse whole albums without having to jump to a new page, reducing the number of page refreshes needed. The new Flash-based uploader, meanwhile, will let users tag multiple photos in the same album all at once (no, this isn't face recognition technology), as well as tag photos of the same person with a lot less effort.

To promote the Photos app enhancement coming this month, Facebook has included some higher resolution photos from National Geographic and Sports Illustrated. They look pretty darn good!