Resize images for Instagram

The sizes to use

These are the sizes in the Pixellin Instagram presets, based on the platform’s recommendations as of 2026:

Placement	Size (px)	Aspect ratio	Use it for
Square post	1080 × 1080	1:1	Product shots, quotes, carousels that mix orientations
Portrait post	1080 × 1350	4:5	Most photos. It takes up the most feed space
Portrait post (grid)	1080 × 1440	3:4	Posts that should fill a profile grid tile without being cut
Landscape post	1080 × 566	about 1.91:1	Wide scenes, banners, group photos
Story or Reel cover	1080 × 1920	9:16	Full-screen vertical content
Profile photo	320 × 320	1:1	Avatar. It displays as a circle

If you’re unsure, use 1080×1350. A 4:5 portrait fills more of the screen in the feed than a square or landscape image, which gives it more presence while people scroll.

Why the 3:4 size exists

Instagram’s profile grid shows posts as portrait 3:4 tiles rather than squares. A 4:5 post fits the feed well but gets trimmed slightly at the top and bottom on the grid. A 1:1 post gets trimmed at the sides. If your profile grid matters to you, for example for a portfolio, a shop, or a planned grid layout, export at 1080×1440 so the feed and the grid show the same framing.

Why upload at 1080 px wide

Instagram displays feed images at about 1080 px wide. What happens when you upload something else:

• Much larger (for example, a 4000 px phone photo): The app scales it down and recompresses it with its own settings. You lose control over sharpening and quality, and fine detail can turn soft or blotchy.
• Smaller (for example, 640 px): The app scales it up, which looks soft on modern phones.
• Exactly 1080 wide at the right ratio: The image needs little or no resizing, so what you exported is close to what people see.

Resizing yourself, with high-quality multi-step downscaling, generally gives a cleaner result than letting the app do a large one-step reduction. Instagram will still recompress your upload, so start from a good-quality file, such as a JPG at quality 85–90, rather than one that’s already heavily compressed.

Crop to fill vs. fit inside

When your photo’s shape doesn’t match the target ratio, you have to choose how to handle the difference. The Pixellin resizer offers three options.

Crop to fill

The image is scaled until it covers the whole frame, and the overflow is trimmed off, centered. It works well when the subject is in the middle and there’s space around it, as with most portraits, food, and products.

Watch out for heads cut off at the top of 9:16 Stories from landscape photos, and text near the edges. If the center isn’t where the subject is, crop manually first with Crop Image using the 4:5, 1:1, or 9:16 preset, then resize.

Fit inside (with padding)

The whole image is kept and scaled to fit inside the frame, and the empty space is filled. You can fill it with:

• A solid color. White or black is a clean look for art, screenshots, and graphics.
• A blurred copy of the image. A softened, enlarged version of the same photo fills the bars. It looks natural for photos, especially when you’re putting a landscape shot into a 9:16 Story.

Use fit inside when nothing can be cut, such as a group photo, an infographic, a recipe card, or artwork.

Stretch

This forces the image into the exact size and distorts it. It’s only useful for flat patterns or abstract backgrounds. Avoid it for anything with people or text.

Step by step: resize photos for Instagram

1. Open the Instagram Image Resizer.
2. Drop your photos onto the page, choose them, or paste them. A whole batch for a carousel works fine.
3. Pick a preset, such as Portrait post (4:5) at 1080×1350.
4. If your photos have a different shape, choose Crop to fill or Fit inside. For Fit inside, pick a color or the blurred background.
5. Choose JPG as the output format. It’s the safest choice for Instagram uploads.
6. Select Process, then check the previews.
7. Download each file, use Download all (ZIP), or on a phone tap Share / Save to send the images straight to your Photos app.

Processing happens on your device. Your photos aren’t uploaded anywhere before you post them.

Carousels: keep one ratio

All images in a carousel are shown at the ratio of the first one. If you mix a 4:5 portrait with a landscape shot, the landscape gets cropped. To avoid this, resize every image in the carousel to the same preset in one batch. Use fit inside with a blurred background for the ones that can’t be cropped.

Stories and Reels: mind the safe zones

A 1080×1920 Story is full-screen, but the profile name and progress bar sit at the top and the reply bar sits at the bottom. Keep text and faces out of roughly the top and bottom 250 px. When you fit a landscape photo into a Story with a blurred background, the photo lands in the middle band, which keeps it clear of both.

Common problems and fixes

• The photo looks soft after posting. Upload at exactly 1080 px wide instead of a much larger or smaller size, and start from a high-quality original rather than a screenshot or a previously compressed copy. A light pass with Sharpen Image before resizing can help with slightly soft photos.
• The edges get cut off. Your ratio didn’t match the placement. Resize to the exact preset, or use fit inside.
• The colors look different. Pixellin converts colors to sRGB, the standard for phones and the web, so wide-gamut photos may look slightly less saturated than on the camera’s own screen. They’ll look consistent across viewers.
• You want location data removed. Resized files from Pixellin don’t keep EXIF metadata, including GPS. The photo’s orientation is applied to the pixels, so nothing appears sideways.

For sizes on other platforms, see the Social Media Image Resizer.