Instagram Will No Longer Crop Photos From Smartphones
Unless you’ve screwed up your smartphone camera settings, you’re probably shooting in 3:4 (or 4:3 if you’re holding your phone in landscape orientation). This is the default aspect ratio for most smartphone cameras, which means our photo libraries are full of images that fit this format.
The problem is that despite smartphones being the most popular camera in the world, not all social media platforms honor the 3:4 aspect ratio. Instagram, for example, supports its classic 1:1 square images, as well as the 4:5 aspect ratio, but not 3:4. At first glance, 4:5 looks like 3:4 — so much so that you may never notice the difference when uploading your photos. But rest assured, a 3:4 photo uploaded to Instagram’s 4:5 aspect ratio is cropped to fit that frame, meaning you lose a little bit of the top and bottom of every photo you post that way.
If you click on the post preview to zoom out, you’ll see parts of the image that don’t make it into the final version. You can move the image up or down to show more of the top or bottom, but either way you’ll only cut off more of the opposite end.
Instagram Now Supports 3:4 Images
Thankfully, that’s now changing. In a post on Threads , Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, announced that the app now supports 3:4 uploads. The reception seems to be mostly positive, though some users clearly want more from Instagram, namely support for 2:3, a popular aspect ratio among photographers.
Instagram also announced the news on its Creator’s Broadcast Channel . The post confirmed that the change applies to both single-photo posts and carousel collections, and that you can still share 1:1 and 4:5 images as you wish. The company included an example comparing two different Instagram posts — one that shares an image in 4:5 format and one that shares the same image in 3:4 format — with dotted lines showing where the image would be cropped to fit the 4:5 format.
The change is already rolling out to all Instagram users, but you may not see it right away. My Instagram app still defaults to the 4:5 aspect ratio, even after updating to the latest version on iOS.
It’s important to note that 4:3 images, as well as other landscape or horizontal aspect ratios, are supported on Instagram. In theory, you could flip your 3:4 images to post the full image, but you’d have to get your friends to turn their phones (or heads) sideways to see it.