The Best Export Settings For Instagram Revisited For 2023
I love to post my images on Instagram, but I hate when the picture comes out fuzzy or washed out. It’s important to know the correct settings when exporting your photo from Lightroom (or any other photo management/editing tool) so that it’s displayed the way you want on Instagram. So what are the best export settings for Instagram?
Instagram’s current guidelines for image sizes and aspect ratios are a little hard to track down because the page is no longer in the Help Center’s menu. But just in case you want to see the official info, here’s a direct link.
What Image Sizes Does Instagram Support?
When Instagram launched a decade ago, it only supported a square crop (1:1) image. In the intervening years, it has added support for landscapes (1.91:1) and portrait crops (4:5).
Instagram’s display area for images is 1080 pixels tall, so when you upload an image, the application will scale it to match that height.
Doing a little math shows that the best export settings for Instagram image sizes are:
- 1080px by 1080px (Square)
- 1080px by 1350px (Portrait) and
- 1080px by 566px (Landscape)
Preparing Your Images
The first step in exporting an image for Instagram is to crop your images into one of the sizes shown above. To crop the image, you will have to use the cropping tool in your photo editor and create the proper aspect.
Even though you can crop your image when posting on Instagram, I always suggest changing the image in your photo editor. Your editor gives you more control over how the image will be cropped. You can zoom in on the image to see the exact placement of the crop and do some “border patrol” to ensure there are no oddly “cut off” people or elements.
Instagram Crop Formats
So use the editor’s crop tool and set the aspect ratio to one of the following based on how you want your image to be displayed :
- 1:1 – Square
- 4:5 (tall) – Portrait
- 1.9:1 (wide) – Landscape
Tip – In Lightroom, when you set an aspect ratio, the crop will be in the wide mode. The crop will rotate 90 degrees to be in the tall mode by pressing the X key.
Instagram Image Sizes
Once the image is properly cropped, you can then export the image using the pixel with and height settings as shown here:
- 1080px by 1080px (Square)
- 1080px by 1350px (Portrait) and
- 1080px by 566px (Landscape)
Most people export to JPG format. Although other formats are supported, JPG is the most widely used for posting to Instagram.
Other Important Settings for Instagram Images
Other settings that are important to set up correctly are the color space, jpg compression, and sharpening.
Color Space
The colors in your digital image are controlled by a standard called the “color space.” There are several common color space standards, but Instagram, like most web-based applications, uses the sRGB colorspace.
If you export with one of the other color space settings (ProPhoto, Adobe, etc.), then the colors displayed in the image will be off in weird ways. So make sure to set the color space to sRGB.
JPG Compression Settings
Another important setting is the JPG compression or quality amount. The best image format for posting images on Instagram is JPG. While other image formats such as PNG, BMP, non-animated GIFs, most photographers tend to work with JPGs.
One of the features of the JPG image type is being able to set the compression level. JPG compression is called lossy compression meaning that the more compressed the image is, the smaller the file is and the lower the visual quality. There is always a temptation to crank the quality up to 100%, but there’s no win going above about 75%. The human eye really can’t see the difference and basically turning compression off creates a huge image file.
The downside to that is if your image size is too large, Instagram will compress it for you anyway using whatever compression setting they want. So, set the image quality/compression to about 75% so you create a reasonably sized file.
Sharpening
The last setting to look at export sharpening. Most image editors have a setting to add some additional sharpening when exporting the photo. Sharpening for the screen is done so that when images are displayed online, at reduced sizes or resolution will still have some pop to them.
I haven’t run too many tests to see how sharpening affects an Instagram photo. My suggestion would be to use the Sharpen for Screen (or Sharpen for Web) setting.
Boosting Instagram Image Quality with this Hack
But (there’s always a but) when you upload an image to Instagram, there still seems to be some image modification or compression. So even paying close attention and uploading with the proper crop settings and pixel sizes, Instagram will still mess with your image quality.
So how do you get around that?
Super Sizing Hack
I’ve seen it suggested that you can get around Instagram’s bad habits by doubling the pixel sizes on your images. By doubling the image’s pixel density, when Instagram’s image sizing algorithm kicks in and shrinks your images, it actually results in a sharper image.
To use a double-sized image for Instagram, the image sizes for posts are:
- 2160px by 2160px (Square)
- 2160px by 2700px (Portrait) and
- 2160px by 1132px (Landscape)
I tried this doubling technique as an experiment with the following image of a green heron. I thought that this photo would be a great choice because I could look at the quality in the fine detail of the feathers.
So I made five posts to Instagram and looked for the differences –
- Standard Crop 1:1, resized to 1080×1080 (native size) #1080×1080
- Standard Crop 1:1, resized to 2160 x 2160 (double native size – 1080×1080) #2160×2160
- Portrait Crop 4:5, resized to 1080 x 1350 (native size) #1080×1350
- Portrait Crop 4:5, resized to 2160 x 2700 (double native size – 1080 x 1350) #2160×2700
- Landscape Crop 1.9:1, resized to 1080 × 566 (native size) #1080×566
- Landscape Crop 1.9:1, resized to 2160 × 1132 (double native size – 1080px x566px) #2160×1132
Using my fingers to expand the images on my phone, I was able to see more detail in the double-sized images. So I think there is some truth to this technique, and I’ll be using these values to export my photos for Instagram
An important final note – If your image does not have enough resolution (pixels) to reach the required size (2160px), use the standard sizes. Your images will look like crap if Lightroom enlarges them, and then Instagram squishes them back down.
Conclusion
This quick tip has covered my suggestions for the best export settings for Instagram. While most of my examples are oriented towards exporting from Adobe Lightroom, you should easily be able to adapt these techniques to Photoshop, On-1, Luminar, or any other modern photography management system.
I hope these methods work for you, and I look forward to seeing your awesome posts on Instagram soon. If you have any questions or suggestions, please post a comment below!
For more quick tips and photography guides, check out my Guides Page
These articles will tell you about ways to improve your landscape photos or wildlife lenses.
My Test Posts on Instagram
I posted test images on Instagram. To see them navigate to my feed, https://www.instagram.com/gregc_test/, and search for the tag –
#instagramimagesize
FAQ
What is the optimum size for a Square Instagram Post?
You may be able to enhance the image by using double the pixel density at 2160 x 2160 px –
What is the optimum size for a Portrait Instagram Post?
You may be able to enhance the image by using double the pixel density at 2160 x 2700 px –
What is the optimum size for a Landscape Instagram Post?
You may be able to enhance the image by using double the pixel density at 2160 × 1132 px –
Where To Find More Info
Mango Street over on YouTube has a quick tutorial on exporting to Instagram from Lightroom. They don’t cover the double image size, but their vid is excellent at quickly covering the basics.
