How to Use the New Built-in Photo-Sizing Tool for Instagram

Instagram is by far our favorite social media application for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. For years we’ve been able to share visually interesting and creative digital photographs with our friends, family, and other followers keeping them up-to-date and even entertained.

I believe that some of the best applications, or services, are the ones that force you to be a little creative. Let’s use Twitter for example. To send a Tweet it must be less than 140 characters. This limitation forces you to only include necessary information and ultimately backspace all of the garbage.

This is the same scenario with Instagram. Instagram used a square ratio for photos, much like the classic Polaroid cameras of the past. This square ratio forces the user to crop out any unimportant details (and sometimes even important ones like arms, legs, or faces! oops!).

Instagram is changing the way we can upload photos, and is slowly rolling out the update over time. This might be one of the biggest changes to Instagram in a long time, and makes uploading the perfect photo a little easier.

Now instead of a cropped square photo, you can now upload portrait and landscape photos. Landscape photos will appear much smaller than the typical square ratio photos, pushing the Like and Comment buttons up closer to the photo. Vertical photos face the opposite fate, however.

Making your photo “full-size” in vertical mode will make your Instagram photo huge, to the point where the Like and Comment buttons aren’t visible on the main page. Keep in mind that your portrait photos will still not be full-size, and if you’d like to include every bit of your photo, try this app called Insta-Size.

If you’d like to start taking advantage of the new built-in photo sizing options for Instagram, follow these simple steps.

1. Open Instagram.

2. Press the Camera button.

3. Select the landscape or portrait photo you’d like to share.

4. In the bottom left corner press the diagonal arrows button

5. Press next to add your filter, then caption, then share!

If you don’t see the diagonal arrows button yet make sure to open up the App Store. Tap updates on the bottom right corner, and check to see if your app is outdated. Updating the app should install the new feature. If you still don’t see the button, the feature hasn’t been rolled out in your area yet. Check back in a day or two and you’ll most likely be ready to download the newest version.