The first thing that you have to recognize is that Instagram forces you to post your pictures in a square layout, sized at 650px by 650px. The 2nd point that you need to comprehend is that you have to export the pictures at the right dimension and resolution if you desire to maintain the photos festinating and of excellent quality. That suggests that they need to be exported at 650px on the long side.
For my workflow, I utilize Lightroom, Photoshop, DropBox, and Instagram to take care of all the prep work and publishing. I've tried a couple of various other means to upload my pictures on Instagram, yet the following operations has offered me the best as well as most consistent results.
If you don't want to undergo the process that I comply with below, and simply intend to publish pictures without IG cropping your images, there are applications that you could mount on your smartphone like Squaready and also InstaSize. I don't utilize either of those apps myself.
How To Size Photos For Instagram
Tip One - Lightroom
The first thing that I do is process my photos generally, as well as prepare them for how I print them, or publish them to my website. You could assess that procedure in previous articles in this same post-processing section. I won't duplicate every one of that right here.
When you have do with all your post-processing of the pictures, then you could start selecting the images that you want to prepare for publishing to Instagram.
In the Library module, select all the pictures that you want to publish to Instagram, as well as create a brand-new collection of them. You could call it anything that you like, however I suggest that you make use of "IG" in the name, either at the beginning or the end, so that you remember what it is for.
Once you have selected them, and also have actually produced a brand-new collection, you should go through and see if you could chop any one of them to a 1-to-1 proportion. You could make use of the plant tool for that, and also select 1 × 1 as the ratio.
The ones that can be exported as 1 × 1 in ratio, can be refined exclusively in Lightroom, and also could utilize your routine watermark (I made use of mine on the example below). These will be exported at 650px x 650px.
The ones that have the ability to be resized as squares are simple, and that is all you have to provide for them in resizing. For every one of these, you can jump down to Tip Three-- DropBox, as well as miss Step 2-- PhotoShop.
For the pictures that do not look excellent in a 1-to-1 proportion, you will wind up exporting these at 650px on the long side, yet without any watermark on them. See the setups listed below. I recommend that you export these into a dedicated folder. Once they are exported, you will certainly proceed to Step 2-- PhotoShop.
Step Two-- Photoshop
The whole factor of this step is to position your photo on a 650px by 650px background, and also to add your watermark to the bottom of the square. Doing it by hand is a tedious procedure if you aim to do it by hand, so I recommend that you execute a set procedure and also make use of an activity to automate the procedure, which will certainly make it easy to repeat over and over.
If you aren't sure the best ways to create Actions in PhotoShop, you will need to evaluate that first. Once you comprehend the procedure after that the following directions will certainly make sense to you.
Your activity will have to do the complying with things in this order:
- Open your picture from your import folder as well as lots it to a layer. By default, it is filled as a history. I replicate the history to a brand-new layer, and also name it "automobile", leaving the opacity at 100%.
- Then it has to open up Image > Canvas Size and also set the elevation to 650px.
- Produce a new layer, as well as tag it "black".
- Fill the "black" layer with the black color using the paint container device.
- Use File > Open to open your watermark logo that you wish to place below the image. Put it on a brand-new layer and name it "logo".
- Move the "logo" layer below the auto layer.
- Move the "black" layer below the "logo" layer.
- Close the watermark that you previously opened up.
- Save the completed 650px by 650px picture to a new folder someplace on your hard disk drive (you will certainly should have already created this folder prior to producing the activity).
- Shut the file in Photoshop.
Once you have the activity, you can open up PhotoShop at anytime, as well as run the Documents > Automate > Set Process command, and select the folder where you have actually kept the images that were not currently at a 1-to-1 proportion.
Tip Three-- DropBox
As soon as you have actually exported every one of your photos, you need to get them approximately Instagram There are programs that allow you to publish from your PC to Instagram, however I found that I had issues getting the hashtags to work appropriately when I utilized them, and also I had to start a new account to repair the hashtag problem. The fix was to merely continue to use my mobile phone and also utilize the Instagram application to upload the images, but to do that I had to have the photos where my phone can access them. The easiest means was to make use of DropBox to get the photos where my Instagram application could access them.
Most likely to DropBox.com as well as sign up for it. Download and install the application to your phone as well as login to it. Make use of the DropBox.com internet site to submit your images to your on-line storage space. I recommend that you use folders to arrange your pictures. In my case, I have a "Photos" folder, as well as inside it, I have an "Instagram Photos" folder. Inside that folder, I create folders as I need them, in order to separate the photos right into smaller, much easier to view, sections.
Once you have uploaded a set of pictures into DropBox, you await the next step, which is to grab your smartphone and open up the Instagram app.
Tip 4-- Instagram
At this moment, you should currently have the Instagram and also DropBox applications on your smart device, as well as you are ready to post one of your photos on Instagram.
Open up the app, as well as click heaven switch in the middle of the symbols at the bottom of the display. The take photo screen will certainly fill, as well as in the lower left-hand corner, you will see an icon that resembles a "landscape/mountain" symbol (simply to the left of the "take a photo" switch). Click it, and it needs to trigger you to "Choose a Resource" for your image, and the DropBox symbol ought to be displayed as one of the selectable resources. Click it and also you will certainly see your DropBox folders as well as data noted in a file browser. Navigate to the picture that you uploaded that you wish to upload to Instagram and also choose it.
From there, you upload it to Instagram much like you would other picture that you just took.
Step Five-- DropBox
This last action is not called for, but highly suggested. In order not to lose track of what you have posted already, you should return right into DropBox as well as delete the photo( s) that you have already published. This will make it simpler over time to not upload the very same images several times.
Conclusion
That's it, my entire process to preparing my photos for Instagram. It's not made complex, but complying with these guidelines will make certain that you are uploading photos in the very best high quality that Instagram can sustain.