Do y'all compress buds for bag appeal?

What's up crew? I just cut down a girl of mine and was trying to figure out why my dry buds look so different from the green that I purchase. They are a bit fluffy, but when I pinch and smash it down, it appears to be a normal nugget. I don't know if this is a good method though because I figured I may be damaging the trichs by smashing and compressing.

What i'm getting at is, is there anything special you guys do at the very end to make the buds look perfect and compact, or did I just get unlucky with my bagseed strain/or environmental factors?

Also, I wanted to note that the buds were pretty crispy after only hanging for 2.5 days. Any info. is greatly appreciated, thanks!

Probably the environmental factors, light, etc that made them fluffy...if you want dense buds you need to get HID lighting, co2 injection into the grow space, solid stable nutrients, and a good strain...throwing a few bagseeds under some CFL's yer pretty much limited to the fluffy

You don't need Co2 for dense buds. It might help, but if you have good ventilation you don't need Co2

This was an outdoor grow also, so I'm not worried about the light or circulation because she definitely received at least 6 hrs. of full sun. I'm leaning more toward genetics as this was just some bagseed. Great smell though, and had some weight. A 6in. cola was about 6 or 7 grams. Just a bit fluffy though.

Only 6 hours of full Sun? Thats your problem there bro.

heat stress and strectching to sun create lenky budddds

I'd think compressing the buds would break open lots of trichs.....and that'll degrade them really quick far as potency