Posting a photo on Instagram in full size without prior preparation is difficult. The social network carefully crops the edges of the image, other people’s hands and legs, heads and parts of the landscape. Previously, avoiding complex situations had to be done with the help of separate software, but now there are several local solutions that allow you to publish posts almost without additional processing in graphic editors.
Why does Instagram crop photos – is it possible to save the full size?
There are many reasons why Instagram crops photos. These include saving space on servers, the desire to fully adapt content for vertical screens on mobile devices (the key goal is to put users on equal footing when scrolling pages on iPhone, Samsung, Xiaomi, or Huawei), and preserving proportions for non-standard photos with strange aspect ratios. All of these factors together force people to look for ways to bypass the restrictions so that Instagram doesn’t crop too much.
How to add a photo without cropping and maintain quality
You can add a full photo in the following ways:
- without a white background;
- vertically;
- as a panorama.
Without a white background
It has long been possible to take a photo and immediately upload it to Instagram without a white background, which was previously used to fit into standard proportions. Now, an automatically organized transparent field will appear around the edges. It is better to immediately follow the 16:9 aspect ratio and choose a resolution of 1067×600 pixels.
Vertical photo
A full-length photo on Instagram can now be added without any lengthy experiments. Finally, a separate button has appeared in the interface that allows you to stretch a vertical shot and add it in full size, but with frames on the sides.
Panoramic photo
It is possible to upload a rectangular photo stretched horizontally and designed as a panorama to Instagram experimentally using separate software. SwieablePanorama and InSwipe help to cut the photo into parts and upload them in parts to a grid of 3 or 6 frames that can be easily scrolled from left to right. The combination looks unconventional and even advantageous against the usual publications in the news feed.
How to resize a photo for Instagram
Adjusting the original image to fit the proportions of a social network may be a tedious task, but it is not difficult at all – there are plenty of software solutions available online that make the task much easier:
Self-pruning
Manually cropping a photo and achieving a full display of the image on social media pages can be aided by even pre-installed graphic editors in Windows or MacOS operating systems (such as Microsoft’s Paint, which allows for resizing in pixels or percentages). If Photoshop or Lightroom are available, there will be no problem either.
It is important to remember only about the proportions – 16 to 9, and about the resolution no more than 1067×600 pixels for publications that appear in the feed, and up to 1920×1080 for Stories.
Image compression
An alternative to Paint, Photoshop, and Lightroom is the proven tool, Canva, which has long been available online. Canva helps you upload photos in a way that Instagram won’t crop anything unnecessary (and also allows you to change certain details, such as captions, filters, or even frames), using special templates pre-selected for different social networks.
In the realities of Instagram, there are special sets for posts, stories, covers for eternal “Stories”, avatars, and even grids.
Just enter a suitable option in the search, and the system will immediately select the missing details and help you experiment, as well as suggest what things not to forget and what else can easily impress the audience. Special recommendations help to get inspired in just a few minutes.
Apps that modify image settings for Instagram
A whole collection of graphic editors – NoCrop, Square, Whitagram – can automatically adjust the proportions to fit the size of the Instagram news feed. These helpers adapt content for both classic posts and Stories, and can also help with superficial changes to individual details. They can add text and effects, non-standard geometric shapes and visual elements that can emphasize the theme of the photo.
Special software and manual adjustment of photo resolution or images uploaded from the network can help post photos on the Instagram social network without cropping details at the edges. You just need to remember about proportions. If the frame is wider or taller than the system expects, white bars will appear at the edges, and the level of detail will immediately decrease.