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How to make your whole photo fit on instagram


How to Fit the Whole Picture on Instagram

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Julia Enthoven

4 min

This article shows you how to fit the whole picture on Instagram. If you have a full portrait (9:16) image or video or a landscape (16:9) image or video, you can fit the whole picture in your Instagram post by following this tutorial.

Instagram has a maximum aspect ratio of 4:5 on portrait posts (four pixels wide for every five pixels tall). Instagram’s restriction reduces the number of very tall images that take up a lot of vertical space in the feed. Although it’s nice that Instagram keeps users from publishing massive, obtrusive posts, the 4:5 limit makes it difficult to post a whole vertical picture or video that you shot on your phone.

Here's what your tall photos will look like on Instagram without added borders. 

If you want to fit your whole picture on Instagram but it is taller than the 4:5 aspect ratio, you need to modify your image before posting. Otherwise, Instagram will automatically crop your image to a maximum of 4:5. I recommend the Kapwing resizer as it allows you to add white space on either side to bring your image to the required aspect ratio. In this article, I’ll explain how to fit the whole picture on Instagram in three simple steps:

  1. Upload picture
  2. Resize to 4:5
  3. Download and Post to Instagram

Step 1: Upload Picture

Start by opening the Kapwing’s Resizer tool on your phone or computer. Upload your image file from camera roll or import it from a URL. Kapwing supports images, videos, and GIFs, so you can use it to resize for any kind of media.

The video resizer tool in Kapwing

Once your picture loads into the editor, you’ll be taken into the Kapwing Studio Editor where you'll see a preview of your image in the center of the screen.

Step 2: Resize to 4:5

In the Output Size section, select the 4:5 option. This allows your photo to take up maximum vertical space in the Instagram feed without getting sized down. There is a resizing option for Instagram, 1:1, but this shrinks your image to fit in the default square shape.

Resize the image to 4:5 using the button in the Output Size list

Once you have selected the size option, Kapwing adds white padding to either side of your image to make it fit the 4:5 aspect ratio. You can change this white background to any color you want so that it stands out in the Instagram feed.

Step 3: Download and Post

Click the red Export Image button at the top of the screen. After a few moments of processing, Kapwing makes your resized 4:5 picture or video available for download. Whether you're using a desktop computer, iPhone, Android, or tablet you'll be able to instantly download the image to your photo gallery once published.

If you're not signed into a Kapwing account, sign in or sign up using your Google or Facebook account – once you've signed into a Kapwing account, the watermark in the lower right corner will be removed from your final image.

Open the Instagram app and upload your picture. You’ll notice that Instagram crops the picture to square by default, but you can click the expand arrows or pinch the image in the lower left to fit the whole picture on Instagram. When you publish it, Instagram will resize to image width to fit the screen, the white image background will blend in with Instagram’s white background, and your whole picture will appear on Instagram with no cropping.

Note: You can also choose a black background, if you and your followers use Instagram in Dark Mode.

Conclusion

This tutorial shows you a workaround for posting full portrait pictures and videos on Instagram. You can use Kapwing’s Resizer to post multiple images with different sizes on Instagram, add a thin white border around your media, and publish TikTok and Snap videos. I hope that it helps speed up your social media workflow and enables you to post your beautiful and fun candid moments to Instagram.

This is how your tall photos will appear on Instagram slides – you can see the whole thing!

For more information on how to resize a video for Instagram, check out this video tutorial (we give you the best sizes for each type of video too!):

Check back in at the Kapwing Resources page or our YouTube channel for other content creation tips and tutorials! And remember to tag us @KapwingApp whenever you share your content on social media– we love to see what our creators are passionate about!

Related Articles:

  • How to Post a TikTok on Instagram
  • How to Post a Portrait Photo or Video on Instagram
  • Resize an Animated GIF

How to Make Pictures Fit On Instagram without Cropping

Instagram is a great app for sharing the daily highlights of your life and experiences – and the platform being highly-visual makes that even more appealing. Everybody wants their photos to look good on Instagram and once you finally have that perfect photo it can be annoying to see it get cropped by Instagram.

Instagram uses different image aspect ratios, specifically 4:5 for portraits, 1:1 for squares, and 1.91:1 for landscape pictures. If your image does not align with image guidelines for Instagram your image would get cropped to fit.

However, there are multiple ways you can add your pictures on Instagram without them getting cropped which involve resizing, adding borders, and using third-party apps to make your image fit within Instagram’s given frame. Read on to find out how to fit your images for a cleaner and more consistent look.

1. Resize Your Images with Instagram’s Crop Feature

When Instagram first started out it only had the option to upload square images with a ratio of 1:1 however an update back in 2015 changed this as Instagram started to allow uploading portraits and landscape images as well.

It’s very easy to resize your images using Instagram’s crop feature. When adding a new post you will see a light grey icon with a white frame inside on the bottom left of your post screen. Click on it and it will automatically resize your images to fit the frame. You can also pinch your fingers together to shrink your image so it fits in the post.

The main downside to this method is that it is limited and might not fully cover the excess or might awkwardly resize them. You want your images to look good, natural, and neat but the zoom feature can only do so much.

If this method does not work on your image then a much better way to resize your images is to do it manually using a photo editing tool or third-party apps.

2. Manually Resize Your Image

The best way to make your images fit on Instagram without cropping them is to manually resize them. Resizing your pictures this way would allow you to have full control over the image.

It’s important to know that when you do resize your image you will have some empty space around your image. The thing cool thing is that if you are manually resizing your images you can have a custom background for your images.

A great tool you can use is BunnyPic – a free online photoshop editor. You don’t have to sign up, install it or be worried to have a watermark on your images. It is totally free to use and beginner-friendly.

To resize your images using BunnyPic follow the below steps:

  1. Go to the BunnyPic Editor.
  2. Click on Open from Computer and select the image you want to resize.
  1. Go to Image > Canvas Size and scale the canvas to 1080 x 1080 pixels or a 1:1 aspect ratio.
  1. Create a New Layer and place it below the picture layer.
  1. Fill the new layer with a white color or black if you and your followers use dark mode.
  1. Once you’re happy with the results go to File > Export As and export it as a PNG or JPG.

You can see how the image now fits perfectly inside the frame compared to the cropped image from before without losing any of its original value.

3. Using Third-Party Apps

The above method should work for all your photos but if you want to keep the whole process on your phone without having to switch around your photos from your computer you can try third-party apps.

There are numerous third-party apps on Google Play Store and Apple App Store that you can download which would automatically resize your photos to fit into your canvas.

The best free apps to make pictures fit on Instagram without cropping are No Crop & Square, Whitagram, and PicsArt.

No Crop & Square

No Crop & Square for Instagram is an app that gives you different options to edit your photos for Instagram. It has a number of resizing options such as rotation, shrink, and enlarge. You can also add text and stickers to your images; making it a great app to meet all your needs.

No Crop & Square is only available on Android and can be downloaded for free from the Google Play Store here.

Whitagram

Whitagram is an IOS app that allows you to add white borders and resize your images for Instagram. It is quite similar to the above app and will get the job done to make your images look cleaner without going through a complicated editing process.

Download Whitagram from the Apple Store here.

PicsArt

PicsArt is a popular editing app that is available for both IOS and Android and has a better and unique way of resizing your photos for Instagram. It has a blur effect which can be added to the image borders which is far more attractive than the white or black borders from the previous apps.

To edit your Instagram pictures without cropping using PicsArt follow the below steps:

  1. Open your photo from your camera roll/gallery.
  2. Click on the share icon.
  3. Select PicsArt. This will open your image on PicsArt.
  4. On the bottom of the screen, select Effects.
  5. Select Square fit and add a 50% blur with the slider.

The effect works best for landscape photos. This is the kind of result you would get.

Download PicsArt on the Play Store or App Store.

Conclusion

Instagram is a great app for sharing your pictures online but it can be annoying when Instagram crops your image to make it fit in the post. This cropping is poorly done, making it look awkward and not as you intended.

To make your images fit better on Instagram you can use their crop feature, our BunnyPic editor, or third-party apps on your phone to resize your images and make them fit the way you want them to.

How to post a photo on Instagram in full size, what to do when cropped

Posting a photo on Instagram in full size without prior preparation is difficult. The social network diligently crops the edges of the picture, other people's and not only arms and legs, heads and parts of the landscape. Previously, it was necessary to avoid difficult situations with the help of separate software, but now several local solutions have appeared that allow you to publish entries with almost no additional processing in graphic editors.

Why Instagram crops a photo - is it possible to save the full size

There are many reasons why Instagram crops a photo. Saving space on servers, the desire to fully adapt content to vertical screens of mobile technology (the key goal is to put users on an equal footing when scrolling pages is the same on the iPhone, and on Samsung, Xiaomi or Huawei), maintaining proportions for non-standard shots with a strange ratio sides.

Together, these factors make us look for ways to get around the restrictions so that Instagram does not cut off the excess.

How to add a photo without cropping and maintain quality

You can add a full photo in the following ways:

  • without a white background;
  • vertical;
  • as a panorama.

No white background

It has long been possible to take a picture and immediately upload it to Instagram without a white background, previously used to get into standard proportions. An automatically arranged transparent margin will now appear around the edges. It is better to immediately follow the proportions of 16 d9and choose a resolution of 1067x600 pixels.

Vertical photo

A full-length photo on Instagram is now added without much experimentation. Finally, a separate button appeared in the interface that allows you to stretch out a vertical shot and add everything in full size, but with frames on the sides.

Panoramic photo

You can upload a rectangular photo to Instagram, stretched horizontally and designed as a panorama, experimentally - using separate software. SwieablePanorama and InSwipe help you cut the image into pieces and load the pieces into a grid of 3 or 6 frames that are easy to scroll from left to right. The combination looks unusual and even advantageous against the background of the usual publications in the news feed. nine0003

How to adjust the size of a photo for Instagram

Adjusting the original image to the proportions of a social network is a task, although annoying, not at all difficult - it is easy to find a bunch of software on the network that simplifies the task at times:

Self-cropping

even the graphic editors pre-installed in Windows or MacOS operating systems will help to achieve a full display of the image on the pages of the social network (Microsoft's Paint allows you to resize in pixels or percentages). If Photoshop or Lightroom was at hand, then there will be no problems either. nine0003

It is important to remember only about the proportions - 16 to 9, and about the resolution of no more than 1067x600 pixels for publications that fall into the feed, and up to 1920x1080 for Stories.

Image Size Compression

An alternative to Paint, Photoshop and Lightroom is a tried and true tool that has been on the web for a long time - Canva. To upload a photo so that Instagram does not cut anything superfluous (and at the same time change some details, such as captions, filters, or even frames), Canva helps with the help of special templates pre-selected for different social networks. nine0003

In the realities of Instagram, there are special sets for publications, Stories, covers for the eternal "Stories", avatars and even grids.

As soon as you enter a suitable option in the search, the system will immediately select the missing details and help you move on to experiments, and also tell you what things you should not forget about, and what else is easy to impress the public with. Special recommendations help you get inspired in minutes.

Applications that change image settings for Instagram

A whole collection of graphic editors - NoCrop, Square, Whitagram - can automatically adjust the proportions to the size of the Instagram news feed. The listed assistants adapt the content to both classic publications and Stories, and at the same time they will help with a superficial change in individual details. They will add text and effects, non-standard geometric shapes and visual elements that can emphasize the theme of the picture.

Posting a photo on the Instagram social network without cropping details around the edges will help both special software and manual adjustment of the resolution of photos or images downloaded from the network. You only have to remember the proportions. If the frame is wider or narrower than the system suggests, then white streaks will appear around the edges, and detail will immediately decrease. nine0003

How to post vertical photos on Instagram without cropping

Recently, Instagram announced support for both landscape and portrait formats, but only when you post multiple images and videos in one post. It soon became allowed for individual downloads as well. While welcomed, this move is still limiting as I can't post vertical photos to Instagram unless they have a specific aspect ratio.

I've put together a few methods for adjusting your photos to the correct aspect ratio. These are multi-platform applications and tools that will allow you to upload Instagram vertical images in a few clicks. Let's start.

Read: Make a photo square without cropping - online tool

Vertical photos on Instagram

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There are two crop options for Instagram:

  • Portrait: 4:5
  • Landscape: 1. 91:1

While Instagram isn't perfect, there are ways to fix this problem. Some tools and applications allow you to post vertical photos with a few clicks. Let's see how.

1. No Crop & Square (Android)

A strange and curious name, but a very popular app for those who want to upload vertical images to Instagram without cropping them. No Crop and Square won't let you post vertical photos like the one you see below. nine0003

The process is quite simple. You open the app and select the image you want to share on Instagram. There are a number of filters and effects to choose from. You can apply whatever you like. There are also emoji, stickers, emoji, and 3D emoji if that's what you're looking for.

You can create a collage in no time. Just add all the images you want to add with the collage tile button. The ability to add text with different fonts, patterns, resize and rotate images makes No Crop and Square a complete Instagram app. nine0003

The app is free to use, but with ads that can be removed with a $0. 99 upgrade. In my experience, the ads were unobtrusive, with the exception of full-screen pop-ups.

Download No Crop and Square (Freemium)

2. Whitagram (iOS)

Whitegram does for iOS devices what No Crop does for Android. It allows you to post full size images and photos to Instagram without having to crop or resize them. Simply select the image you want to upload in vertical mode and the app will automatically crop it to perfection against a white background. nine0003

You see the beauty of this. By adding a white background, it misleads Instagram into thinking the image is square. There are other apps in the App Store that will give you the results you want.

Tip: Always choose the highest resolution when working with a vertical image.

Download Whiteagram (Free)

Pixlr (online)

Here is the easiest trick from the book. Instagram has a hidden option that will let you upload vertical images if you know how to crop images to the right size. You can do this on any platform because it is an online tool. Pixlr is a free and powerful image editor. nine0003

You start by selecting an image and cropping it to a 4:5 aspect ratio. Pretty easy, right? Now, in order to upload an image to Instagram using your PC's browser, you will have to fake it. Follow this guide. It will tell you how to make Instagram think that you are posting from your mobile phone, when in fact you are using your computer.

This is what your screen should like when you faked your browser. You should see the familiar "+" icon at the bottom to add a new image. nine0003

Read: 8 (+1 new) ways to post to Instagram from your computer

When you click the plus icon and add an image, you should see an expand button that looks like an arrow from either end.

Clicking this button will place your image in its original portrait mode with a 4:5 aspect ratio. You will also notice that there are no borders on a white or black background. No more square images that can be annoying as hell when they're crisp, portrait should be the obvious choice. nine0003

Note that the developer mode trick mentioned in the tutorial above will also work on Mac OS using the Safari browser. In fact, it works in all browsers on all platforms.

Pixlr Visit (Free)

4. Entrance Stairs

I can't stress enough how annoying Instagram rules are. I agree that this gives a uniform look to the whole platform, but the tools that do this are not in the application. Instapadder is a web service that completely solves this problem. You can use it on your computer and Android devices to quickly adjust images to match Instagram without cropping content. iOS users cannot get a piece of this particular cake due to their own rules, but they can try the iOS specific method above. nine0003

To add padding around images, simply go to the website in your web browser, click the download button and select all files. It uploads images to a server and converts the images to an Instagram compatible format. The best part about this method is that you can upload and process images right away.

It accepts most image formats and outputs converted images fairly quickly. The only limitation I found with this service is the lack of a preview option before uploading augmented images, so you can't choose which images to upload. Otherwise, Instapadder is pretty good. nine0003

Visit Entrance Staircase

5. Polarr Photo Editor (Mac)

Polarr Photo Editor is available from the MacOS App Store and can be used as an integration with the iPhoto editor or as a standalone editing tool.

Once you have downloaded the Polarr Photo Editor (link below), just open it and import the photo you want to edit for Instagram.

Once you enter the editor application, click the settings tab on the right side of the screen. Scroll down and click "Border" '. Now select the aspect ratio and border color from the available custom menu. When you click on the Save button, the changes to the photo will be saved and the iPhoto library will be updated immediately. If you're using an iPhone, it's probably also in your iPhone Photo Library.

Download Polarr Photo Editor (Free, $24/year)

6. Gramblr (Windows)

If you're using a Windows tablet with touchscreen support, Instagram has announced an app just for you. The app is available on the Windows Store, but what about other users? This is where Gramblr comes into play. nine0003

Gramblr didn't support vertical images before, but I think they made some changes to their API since the current version supports it. Here is a screenshot.

As you can see, Gramblr does its job. The application is free and works on all Windows computers, including 32-bit versions. You will need to create a free account, but there is no need to verify your email address. Just select, crop, add filters, add a caption and post it to your Instagram.

Learn more