You probably never considered the importance of knowing how to crop photos for Instagram. But it is very important.
In this article, we’ll share which size photos to use to make the most of your Instagram photos!
How To Crop Photos
Well, there are many ways to crop images for Instagram.
First, you can use your phone’s own integrated editing system. On the other hand, you can use apps!
Crop Photos With IPhone
If you’re using your iPhone’s editing system, it’s very simple.
Select the photo you want to edit and then in the top right, click ‘Edit’.
Next, click the box and arrow icon in the bottom left.
To crop the photo, you can manually adjust using the white angles in the corner of the photo. Drag and drop to create your ideal crop.
However, you can also use the set ratios. Click the three rectangles in the bottom right.
You will get a list of ratios to choose from. These are the most common ratios to crop photos. We’ll talk more about the best ones to use later!
Depending on whether the photo was taken in portrait or landscape, the iPhone will give you the options to use the ratios according to the photo’s existing ratio.
For example, if you took a photo like this (landscape):
Crop images With External App
VSCO lets you take a landscape photo and make it portrait, and vice versa. Be careful though, this can often adjust the quality of the image!
Using VSCO to crop photos is nice and simple. Once you’ve imported your photo, use the adjustment icon to access the editing tools.
From there, you’ll find one called “Adjust”. This is how you will crop your photos.
VSCO gives you a list of the most commonly used ratios, including both portrait and landscape options.
Simply click the ratio you want and it will adjust your photo for you.
How To Crop images For Instagram
Of course, you’re wondering which ratio is best for Instagram! Lucky for you, there are a few options.
Square Crop
Instagram started with only one option for cropping photos: the square.
The square crop had a good life, but it can be very limiting.
However, sometimes a photo looks wonderful in its simple square crop.
Crop images in a square if you want the entirety of the photo to be seen from your Instagram feed. When you use anything other than square, not every inch of the photo can fit into the grid of your Instagram profile.
Square photos give a nice clean simple feel and take up enough space in your timeline to get noticed.
On VSCO, you can use the 1:1 ratio to get a square photo crop.
*insert photo*
From there, you can slide the box up and down to select which part of the photo you want to be in the crop.
In the iPhone’s editing tools, you get the option to actually crop the photo to a “Square”. This keeps it nice and simple; you don’t have to remember as many numbers!
However, square photos aren’t right for every single picture. It’s certainly awesome that Instagram now allows more sizes!
Landscape Crop
In simple terms, a landscape photo is where the bottom length of the photo is longer than the height of the photo, as pictured here.
Landscape photos are great for landscapes, obviously, selfies with friends, macro photos, flatlays and more.
Landscape crops look good on your Instagram feed, too, as the app will take the middle section of your photo to use as the thumbnail on your grid.
The aspect ratio that Instagram uses for landscape photos is anything up to 1.91:1.
Unfortunately, it’s not easy to find a mainstream free app that will edit at this specific scale. The easiest way to do this is to type into Photoshop or Lightroom these exact dimensions.
However, don’t lose hope! You can still crop a photo to a great landscape ratio using your phone’s editing system or VSCO. It just won’t be as good quality as 1.91:1.
Luckily enough, these aspect ratios all fit Instagram: 3:2, 4:3, and 5:4.
For sure, try 5:4 so that you can fit as much of your photo into the frame as possible!
Tip: Use landscape ratios sparingly. Because the size is smaller, they take up less room on your follower’s timeline which means they are more likely to scroll past them.
Portrait Crop
A portrait crop seems to be the most popular way to crop photos for Instagram these days! This is for many reasons.
- When you take a photo on your smartphone the way you hold it, it automatically takes it in portrait dimensions. Therefore, it’s easier to work with portrait sized photos.
- You can put more into the photo because it is the biggest size Instagram allows.
- You can photograph anything in portrait size: people, landscapes, flatlays, food, selfies, and more.
- Finally, it takes up the most space on your Instagram feed because it is as long as Instagram allows, and goes from edge to edge of the screen, too. So, if you want to capture more people’s attention, use a portrait size!
oot photos so you will have to sacrifice some of your shot to fit it into Instagram’s size, but it’s not much!
Crop images for Instagram Story
Of course, we wouldn’t leave you without telling you the size to use for Instagram stories!
he ratio for this is 9:16. You can use your iPhone editing tool for making this crop, too. VSCO and Lightroom also have this option!
It’s great that you can now crop photos to exactly fit the Instagram story! It is a slim fit but it works well.
However, some things just look silly when cropped to 9:16. Specifically, close up images, because the crop can sometimes cut out important parts of your photo!
Tip: Use apps like Unfold, Over and Mojo to fit your photos into your Instagram story in a more functional and flexible way! These apps have minimalist feels and are all easy to use. Also, you can use your fingers to adjust a photo to its original size in your Instagram story, in order to fit the entire photo in.
That was definitely a lot of information about how to crop photos for Instagram! Don’t worry, you don’t have to figure it out alone. Upleap will be there to help you with any of your Instagram endeavors. With Upleap, you’ll get an account manager who is dedicated to growing your followers, build your brand and engage with your targeted audience. Click https://upleap.com here for a free trial!
