For years, Instagram users have been expressing themselves with all manner of filters, effects and hashtags — but there's always been one nagging limitation: Every photo and video had to be square. That's no longer the case as of Thursday, the photo-sharing service announced in a blog post. Now photos can be shared in landscape and portrait formats, allowing for improved... well, landscapes and portraits.
"It turns out that nearly one in five photos or videos people post aren’t in the square format," read the post announcing the change. "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."
From now on, when selecting a picture to work on in the app, you'll have the option to tap a format button to switch between aspect ratios. The photo will still appear in your profile grid as a square, but when it's viewed individually it will show its true form.
In addition, filters for photos and videos are now the same, and the intensity can be adjusted when applying one to video. The update goes out Thursday to both iOS and Android versions of the app.
