If yours is horizontal, the only workaround is to add a custom background to make your image fit, then fill in the white space with any of the stickers that fit your story. Once you add the photo to your Story, you can then add whatever stickers above and below the image to fill the photo out.Īs you’ll know, Instagram is designed for vertical scrolling. This will let you replace the photo background that Instagram would add with a white background instead. This gives you a brush that will let you merge the pixels in the photo together to mask the blurriness.Īn alternative is to use the same “expand” feature, but this time using the “white” option instead of the “smart” feature. To correct this, tap on “Tools”, then this time, select the “healing” tool. In the image below, you can clearly see it is not a great resampling. Trouble is, the more detailed the image is, the more obvious it will be in the resampled image that it has been edited. Only drag a small amount at a time, tap the tick mark to save, then select “tools” and “expand” and repeat the process until you have the size you want. The reason is that if you drag to expand to cover the entire size of the background, it will be distorted as every detail in the photo is replicated. And it needs to be done gradually, saving after each expansion. It is kind of like copying a few pixels of the image at a time, then pasting it in. Instead, the app resamples parts of the image by expanding it. This is where the Snapseed technology plays a part in making your photos fit any size without cropping anything out. Step 7: Tap Tools and Select “Expand” and use the “Smart” feature. The Snapseed app is available free on the App Store and the Google Play Store. It is different from resizing, which is essentially a zoom function. Resampling an image adds pixels (and details) into a digital photo. It is a method to expand a background rather than crop it out of the picture completely. How this works is rather than cropping the image, you gradually expand the edges of your photo to replicate what is already there. The free route is to use an app called Snapseed. PhotoShop is capable of this, but it is pricey for a non-commercial user.
Image manipulation software is the pro route to go. With Canva, just import, select an Instagram template, then adjust and customize the background and you are good to go.
Snapseed has a Smart Expand feature for image resampling or filling the background in white. The Snapseed app or Canva are two good options for making images fit on Instagram without cropping.
How to make pictures fit on Instagram without cropping