How to post a panorama carousel on Instagram

What is a panorama carousel?

It’s one photo split into several slides of the same size, posted together as a carousel. Instagram shows a carousel one slide at a time, and as someone swipes, the next slide moves in right against the last one, so the picture carries on across the swipe. Landscapes and skylines are the obvious choice, but a long table of friends, a row of products or a mood board laid out side by side work just as well.

How many slides do you need?

Divide your photo’s width by its height, then divide that by the shape of one slide: 0.8 for 4:5, 1 for square and 0.75 for 3:4. Round to the nearest whole number, and that’s the count that keeps the whole photo. A 6000 × 2000 photo is 3:1, so in 4:5 slides it needs 3 ÷ 0.8 = 3.75, which rounds to 4 slides.

Phone panoramas are usually somewhere between 3:1 and 6:1, depending on how far you turned; the size is in the photo’s details. When the count doesn’t come out even, a little is trimmed from the sides or from the top and bottom, and you choose which part stays. A carousel can hold 20 slides, so a very long panorama either loses its dullest stretch or goes across two posts.

The shape changes the feel as much as the count. Taller slides — 3:4, then 4:5 — keep more sky and foreground and need fewer swipes, so the view feels close. Square slides make a thinner band across more swipes, which suits a long skyline or a row of people.

Shooting a panorama for a carousel

• Leave room above and below. Slides are taller than most panoramas, so the splitter often trims the sides. Tilt the phone a little higher or use a wider lens and you get the height to work with.
• Turn slowly and keep the phone level. Follow the guide line in the camera; a wavy horizon is hard to hide once it crosses four seams.
• Watch for moving things. People and cars that move while you turn can come out doubled or cut in half. Wait for a gap, or use it on purpose.
• Plan where the seams will fall. With 4:5 slides, a 4:1 photo is cut every fifth of its width. Frame the people and landmarks between those lines.

Step by step

1. Edit the whole photo first. Straighten the horizon and put your filter or look on the full panorama, so every slide matches.
2. Open the splitter below and choose the photo. It stays on your device; nothing is uploaded.
3. Pick a shape. 4:5 is the usual choice, 3:4 fills a profile-grid tile, and 1:1 is square.
4. Check the slides and the seams. Keep the suggested count or change it, then drag the photo so faces and words sit clear of the dashed lines.
5. Download the slides. On a computer you get a ZIP; on a phone you can save them straight to Photos. They’re numbered in posting order.
6. Post them in order. Start a new post in Instagram, choose to select several photos, and tap the slides from 01 upwards. Check that the crop shows each whole slide in the shape you cut, add your caption and share.

Tips for seams that hold up

• Keep faces, eyes and words off the seams. A line through someone’s face is the first thing people see.
• Let something cross every seam. A horizon, a road or a shoreline tells people there’s more to the right and carries their eye across.
• Make slide 01 a cover. Your profile grid shows only the first slide, cropped to a 3:4 tile, and many people only ever see that one.
• Give every slide a reason to stop. The slides move edge to edge as you swipe, with no gap between them, but people still look at one at a time. Even a perfect seam needs something worth seeing on each slide.
• End on something. Finish the last slide on a person, a building or the sun, not on empty sky.
• Too long for 20 slides? Cut the quietest stretch out of the middle before you split, or tell the story across two posts.

Common mistakes

• Posting the slides out of order. Instagram keeps the order you tap them in. The file names start at 01, so pick them that way.
• Letting Instagram crop to a different shape. If the first slide is cropped to a square, every slide is, and the seams no longer meet.
• Editing each slide on its own. A filter or a brightness change on one slide shows up as a hard edge at the seam.
• Using screenshots instead of the original. A screenshot of a panorama loses most of its pixels; split the photo itself.