If you’ve spent any time browsing Instagram’s Explore tab, you’ve seen the unsightly black matte on the edges of some images. That used to be how Instagram fit an uncropped tall or wide image into its square format. I always thought that the black bars looked horrible and jarring against the white of the Instagram feed.
Out of the hundreds of Instagram support apps, the one I use the most is Squaready Pro ($1.99 USD). It’s a great utility that comes in both Pro and ad-supported free versions. With recent updates to Instagram, using Squaready Pro to prep your instagrams has become even more essential.
Squaready Pro is an easy-to-use utility that crops a photo into square format then lets you easily share it straight to Instagram. It not only crops down, but lets you shrink full landscape or portrait photos into the frame. It creates a more visually pleasing white matte which blends seamlessly into the background of Instagram’s Feed and Explore screens.
Both the free and the Pro versions let you easily crop an image for Instagram.
– First, import your image. Squaready Pro imports it centered and filled in the screen, just like Instagram does now.
– For a square crop, grab the images by the edges of the frame to move. This constrains adjustment to either horizontal or vertical movements allowing for a more precise crop. You can also pinch to zoom.
– For a tall or wide crop with matte, press the “Fit” button. Squaready automatically shrinks your image down to square format and adds a white matte. The white matte looks much more natural in your feed than the old black bars.
– Share to Instagram or a number of other apps with “Open In…” support.
Want to start over with the image? Squaready Pro has an easy center button that fills the crop and centers the image. The free version of Squaready has Rotate and Mirror tools as well. The Pro version gives you many more tools to adjust an image. Both versions let you change the color of the matte if you wish.
With the recent updates, Instagram’s answer to the black matte is to now force a square crop. It’s removed the ability to pinch a wide or tall image down. These recent updates have made Squaready and Squaready Pro even more invaluable to photographers who don’t want to cut off the outside edges of their images to share them.
Squaready is the free, ad-supported version of app and does all you need. I dropped the cash and use Squaready Pro. It’s only $1.99. While I don’t use the additional effects and borders, it’s ad-free and it’s good karma to help support this app.
The Squaready apps are not available for Android.
Download Squaready for Instagram:
App Store link: Squaready Pro – Smart Layouter for Instagram – FANG Inc.
App Store link: Squaready – Smart Layouter for Instagram – FANG Inc.
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