Social apps show pictures in a few fixed shapes: a square, a slightly tall portrait, a full-screen vertical. The pixel sizes are the app's own business and change on its help pages — check there for the current ones. What does not change is the geometry: a photo of one shape put into another loses part of itself. Here is how much.
How much of the photo each shape keeps
Share of the original frame that survives a crop, for the four shapes cameras and phones shoot most:
| Photo | 1:1 | 4:5 | 9:16 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3:2 (landscape) | 67% | 53% | 38% |
| 4:3 (landscape) | 75% | 60% | 42% |
| 3:4 (portrait) | 75% | 94% | 75% |
| 2:3 (portrait) | 67% | 83% | 84% |
The numbers are plain arithmetic, and our 20 test photos agree: cut into a square, landscape shots kept 67% of the frame at the median. A landscape photo put into a 9:16 story loses nearly two thirds of the picture.
Three ways not to lose what matters
- Shoot in the shape you will post. A vertical 3:4 photo keeps 94% in a 4:5 post and 75% in a 9:16 story; a horizontal one keeps 60% and 42%.
- Choose where the crop takes from. In the resizer, "Crop from" moves the window: top for a portrait, a side for a subject that is not in the center.
- Keep everything with bars. "Add bars" fits the whole photo inside the shape on a background color you choose — nothing is cut, the edges are filled instead.
What the files weigh
On 23 September 2026 we cut 20 ordinary photos into a 1080×1080 square with our resizer (JPEG quality 0.95): 145 to 620 KB, 332 KB at the median. That is light enough for any upload; if a form asks for less, compress afterwards.
The presets
The resizer has the three shapes ready at 1080 pixels wide: 1080×1080, 1080×1350 and 1080×1920. It works in your browser; the photos are not uploaded anywhere.