Instagram Unsquares, Will Allow Portrait and Landscape Photos – Kicks Off With #Starwars Exlusive

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For a long time now, Instagram signature look was a square photo with a filter applied. But users are not happy about this restriction. In fact Instagram reports that about 20% of their uploads have crop lines to allow an upload of a horizontal or a vertical photo.

So starting today, Instagram will allow uploading, embedding and filtering of horizontal and vertical photos.

This is somewhat problematic for Instagram as they are trading away one of their biggest distinctions with ease of use. So the press release kinda juggle between wanting to keep it square and wanting to allow more formats:

Square format has been and always will be part of who we are. That said, the visual story you’re trying to tell should always come first, and we want to make it simple and fun for you to share moments just the way you want to.

It turns out that nearly one in five photos or videos people post aren’t in the square format, and we know that it hasn’t been easy to share this type of content on Instagram: friends get cut out of group shots, the subject of your video feels cramped and you can’t capture the Golden Gate Bridge from end to end

Here is one example of how the golden gate will look from now on:

Here is how you upload a non-square photo:

Once you’ve selected a photo or video from your phone or tablet’s photo library, you can choose to share it as a portrait or landscape instead of a square:

1. Tap the format icon to switch the photo from a square to a portrait or landscape.
   You can touch the screen to move the photo and adjust how it fits within the frame. Use the grid to help you frame the photo.
2. Tap Next to apply effects or a filter.
3. Once you share it, the photo or video will appear as a portrait or landscape in Feed. You can share photos and videos with aspect ratios between 1.91:1 and 4:5.

What do you think?