Instagram photos no longer have to be square

Instagram is making a huge change to the way photos and videos are posted on the platform: they no longer have to be square.

That means you can now share photos and videos in their full unadulterated glory, whether in landscape or portrait format.

For most photos anyway; vertical images are still cropped to a 4:3 aspect ratio, likely because Instragram’s vertically-scrolling interface wouldn’t display properly around longer images.

Horizontal photos seem to work up to at least 16:9, although they will look smaller in your feed given you can’t rotate your screen to use the full display.

Instagram popularized the square image format, so this is a pretty surprising move, but it’s sure to be appreciated by photographers that were previously upset at always having to crop their images for the platform.

To switch between formats, you just need to tap the icon to adjust orientation. It’ll still appear as a cropped square in your profile grid (to keep things nice and tidy) but will show in the feed of your followers in the correct format.

The company is also updating filters for videos. Instead of using a separate set of effects, videos now support the same selection of presets as stills. You can also now adjust the intensity of these filters.

One more neat tidbit: to celebrate support for the landscape format, Instagram posted a new Star Wars trailer, which you can check out here.

Both the iOS and Android apps are available to download now.

➤ Thinking Outside the Square: Support for Landscape and Portrait Formats on Instagram [Instagram blog]