Social Media Image Sizes: What to Export and How to Resize

Common social media image sizes

Platforms change these numbers without notice, so check the current help page before a campaign. The ratios are the part that rarely moves.

Why you should crop before you resize

A typical camera photo is 4:3, say 4000 by 3000. Force it into a 1080 by 1080 square without cropping and the width shrinks by a factor of 3.7 while the height shrinks by 2.8, so everything ends up 33 percent taller and thinner than it should be.

Cropping first lets you decide what to lose. Trimming that photo to a square removes 1000 px from the width, which is 25 percent of the frame, and you choose which 25 percent.

How to resize a photo to an exact size

In Resize Image:

• Set Mode to Exact size and enter the width and height, for example 1080 by 1350.
• Leave Fit on Fill & crop. It trims evenly from the sides so nothing is squashed. Stretch (distorts) exists for the rare case where you want that.
• Or start from a preset: Square 1080, Story 1080×1920 or Wide 1920.

What to do when the subject is off-center

Fill & crop trims from the middle, so a subject standing near an edge can get cut off. In that case, crop first. In Crop Image, pick the ratio, then move the frame with the position sliders until the subject sits where you want it. Export, and if the crop is already the right shape, resize it to the target pixel size.

Export settings that survive platform recompression

Every platform recompresses uploads, so give it a clean file. Use JPEG or WebP at a quality around 85 for photos, and PNG for graphics with sharp text. Exporting at exactly the target size also spares you a second resize by the platform, which is where soft edges usually come from.