How to ensure your Instagram feed is cohesively cropped

Instagram is a platform where visual appeal is of utmost importance. While Instagram allows flexibility with image dimensions, it's important to note that the feed always displays pictures in a square format. This means that the center of your image is the focal point in the feed, often being the first thing people see. It should be inspiring enough for them to explore your content further.

One possible solution to this would be if Instagram recognized image regions embedded in the IPTC metadata of images. This approach could be used to fetch a correctly cropped square image for the feed, among other tricks.

The current recommendation to address this issue is to keep the square display format in mind when cropping images for Instagram. This ensures that the most important elements of your image are centered, so they won't be cut off in the feed display. However, this approach can result in a loss of visual dynamics as images are forced into a specific format. And obviously it is sometimes impossible to mentally visualize the exact middle part of the image that will end up being visible in the feed.

While we wait (this might be a long wait) for things to change and Instagram to adOpt the IPTC standard, we made it possible for anyone to crop images for Instagram so that you will see with the help of an overlay, where the centre forced crop will be. This is not perfect but gives a a bit more leeway in being sure your feed is not full of random cuts.

‍

‍

In addition, with Frameright it's super easy to know for sure that your image has the optimal width of 1080 pixels. If you see a red rectangle appearing, that means the crop area does not have enough pixels. Ensure to use a crop area with adequate width and height if you want to keep it crispy.

During the creation of the new overlay feature, we delved into the logic behind Instagram's image formats. I love the flexibility of Instagram when it comes to posting images in a wide variety of formats. To gain a better understanding of this, I created a small graph illustrating the different ranges where different types of posts fall.

Since Frameright.app does not currently have "free hand" cropping, we have provided two variations for horizontal and vertical formats. Each of these variations includes a square overlay to indicate where the feed image will be cropped.

‍

‍

We value your feedback and would love to hear your thoughts. Please let us know what you think and what improvements you would like to see to make your Instagram experience easier.

‍

Cheers,

The Frameright Team

‍