How to use the new portrait and landscape ratios in Instagram

By Rene Ritchie
last updated

For years any and all photos we've uploaded to Instagram have been forced into a 1:1 square aspect ratio. We've lost arms, heads, fronts, backs, tops, and bottoms, all to the crop. Well, no longer. Now Instagram supports portrait and landscape aspect ratios for both photos and video. No black or white bars needed. Here's how!

Note: Instagram neglected to mention that the aspect ratio feature won't simply appear by downloading the app. It's "rolling out" over time. So, if you don't see the button, don't panic. Check back in a few hours or days and hopefully it'll be there. You can try restarting Instagram or rebooting your iPhone, but patience is your best bet. (Hopefully Instagram will be clearer about the nature of their updates in the future.)

How to post landscape or portrait pictures or videos to Instagram

Pictures and video default to the square aspect ratio when you first select them but you can no easily adjust them from there.

  1. Launch Instagram from your Home screen.
  2. Tap on the Open Camera button.
  3. Choose your photo or videos.
  4. Tap on the full size button overlay at the bottom left of the photo. (Or simply pinch and zoom out.)
  5. Tap Next to continue on.


You can now add filters and effects, same as always, and post and share your instas when you're done.

Rene Ritchie
Rene Ritchie
Contributor

Rene Ritchie is one of the most respected Apple analysts in the business, reaching a combined audience of over 40 million readers a month. His YouTube channel, Vector, has over 90 thousand subscribers and 14 million views and his podcasts, including Debug, have been downloaded over 20 million times. He also regularly co-hosts MacBreak Weekly for the TWiT network and co-hosted CES Live! and Talk Mobile. Based in Montreal, Rene is a former director of product marketing, web developer, and graphic designer. He's authored several books and appeared on numerous television and radio segments to discuss Apple and the technology industry. When not working, he likes to cook, grapple, and spend time with his friends and family.

12 Comments
  • for some reason, the full size icon doesn't appear for me. deleted the app and re-downloaded, still missing.
  • Same here. No resize icon. I'm in Canada Sent from the iMore App
  • Same it's not there Sent from the iMore App
  • From the article: "Note: Instagram neglected to mention that the aspect ratio feature won't simply appear by downloading the app. It's "rolling out" over time. So, if you don't see the button, don't panic."
  • Just tried it and my app has it. Sent from the iMore App
  • Nice, I actually already have the option to resize! W00t! :) I still wish they would allow people to zoom into pics or to rotate and view photos in full-screen, especially with this new feature.
  • "For years any and all photos we've uploaded to Instagram have been forced into a 1:1 square aspect ratio. We've lost arms, heads, fronts, backs, tops, and bottoms, all to the crop." Wait...what?! I've never used Instagram--never even visited the web site. So, you're telling me they've always cropped your photos square?! So, why is this site so popular?! I'm sorry, I know I'm missing something here, but that's just seems stupid.
  • The reason why you don't understand, is because you never took the time to educate yourself. You're speaking out of ignorance because you've never even bothered to at least tried the service out, even though it took 1 minute to make an account and 10 seconds to completely delete it. The smart people used the Square Option in their camera software to capture photos for Instagram, or the Instagram in-App camera instead. That way, the photos taken for Instagram were framed for the correct aspect ratio. The service was always more concerned with content. Quality was not the goal, and the filters were disguised to mask some of the bad quality in the shots uploaded to the service (some of which was introduced by compression and downscaling in the service itself). Instagram was designed to emulate old instant film cameras. The aspect ratios and the filters they offered for this is why it became so popular. It was never designed for people taking widescreen shots that they edited in Lightroom or Photoshop and then upload to the platform. Of course they are catering to this more and more, since they want to make money and get more of those less fickle users onto the platform - the same way Flickr designed their apps to cater more to the Instagram crowd (In-App Camera with built-in Filters and an Instagram-like Feed/Social Mechanics). And that's why the SERVICE is popular (they only relatively recently had a usable site - before if you didn't have an iPhone or [later] Android phone you couldn't do anything with it... you still can't even sign up without a smartphone). It allowed people to upload spur of the moment "Instants" and throw a filter on them to make them "less bad" and have quick conversations about it. The Website is only a basic UI for the service. In order to really use this service, you need a smartphone with the App installed. You can't even sign up from a PC Web Browser... The service has seen a lot of development since then. It was much more simple back then. These fundamental differences in design, intent, and focus is why Instagram was able to get as popular as it is, when other services like Flickr, Picasa Web Albums, Photobucket, etc. already existed back then (with free options, which didn't crop/compress/downscale images and allowed you to upload at any aspect ratio). Like many services, in order to truly see the benefits, you have to actually invest somewhat in it. From the outside, most services seem superfluous.
  • Thanks for taking the time to explain all that. Yes, I know I didn't get it due to ignorance about the service. I don't sign up for stuff just to try it until I at least have an idea it's something for me. I don't even use Facebook, so posting photos online didn't interest me. But I've heard a lot about Instagram but never caught that they always cropped etc. Still seems weird, but I do appreciate your time.
  • It's about time! I always hated square pictures and posting on Instagram you don't get to see the full view until now. They should of done this a long time ago, but happy they changed it now. Now all they need to do is let us scroll through pictures by just swiping left and right. Now that would make more sense
  • Thank the FSM. I don't primarly photograph with Instagram in mind, so when I do try to upload photos, there's frequently no way to crop them into squares without losing important parts of the image.
  • Hmm... only downside is if you share to facebook (don't know about twitter) it still makes your picture a square... huge white borders... meh...