How to Post Multiple Landscape Photos on Instagram

Sharing a breathtaking landscape photo on Instagram can feel like trying to fit a masterpiece into a tiny frame. The platform’s default square and vertical formats often force you to crop out the best parts of your wide-angle shots, ruining the composition and the story you’re trying to tell. If you’ve ever felt the frustration of getting your beautiful panorama chopped in half, you’re in the right place. This guide walks you through several simple and effective methods for posting multiple landscape photos on Instagram, ensuring your photos are displayed exactly as you intended - full, stunning, and uncropped.

Why Sharing Full Landscape Photos on Instagram is Worth It

In a world dominated by vertical video and stories, you might wonder if there’s still a place for horizontal photos. The answer is a resounding yes. While Reels and Stories are perfect for quick, attention-grabbing content, landscape photos serve a different but equally valuable purpose. They have a cinematic quality that draws the viewer in, creating a sense of scale and wonder that’s hard to replicate in a vertical format.

Landscape photos are perfect for:

• Travel Photography: Capturing the vastness of a mountain range or the serene expanse of a beach.
• Architectural Shots: Showcasing the full breadth of a building or cityscape.
• Storytelling: Leading the viewer's eye across the frame to reveal details and context.

By learning how to properly format your landscape photos for Instagram, you can diversify your feed, make your profile more visually interesting, and stand out from the sea of standard vertical posts. Let’s look at the best ways to do it.

Method 1: The In-App Pinch-and-Post (The Quick and Easy Fix)

This is by far the simplest way to post single or multiple landscape photos without any external tools. Many users don’t realize that Instagram's own uploader can handle this, but the trick is to format the first image in your selection correctly. Once you do, Instagram applies that same format to every other photo in the carousel.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Open Instagram and tap the plus icon (+) at the bottom of the screen to create a new post.
2. In your photo gallery, tap the "Select Multiple" icon (it looks like two overlapping squares).
3. Now, choose all the landscape photos you want to include in your carousel. Don’t tap "Next" yet.
4. With your photos selected, look at the first image in the sequence. Place two fingers on it and pinch to zoom out. You’ll see the entire horizontal photo shrink to fit within the posting frame, usually adding white or black bars above and below.
5. As you do this, you'll notice that all the other selected photos in the carousel automatically adjust to the same horizontal aspect ratio.
6. Once you're happy with the framing, tap "Next" and proceed with editing, adding captions, and posting as you normally would.

Pros and Cons of This Method

Pros:

• Fast and simple: It takes just a few seconds and doesn’t require any other apps.
• Consistent look: Guarantees that every photo in your carousel has the same dimensions, creating a smooth swiping experience.

Cons:

• No control over borders: Instagram automatically selects black or white borders depending on your app's theme (light mode or dark mode). You can’t change this color.
• Affects all photos: If you include a vertical (portrait) photo in the same carousel, it will also be shrunk down and given large side borders to match the landscape format, which can look very awkward. This method is best when all your photos are horizontal.

Method 2: Take Control with a 'No Crop' App (For a Polished Look)

If you want more creative control over your posts, using a third-party application to prepare your photos is the best approach. This method involves placing your landscape photo onto a new background (usually a square), which gives you full control over border colors and sizing before you even open Instagram.

Why Use a Third-Party App?

By preparing your images beforehand, you unlock a few key advantages:

• Custom Borders: Instead of being stuck with black or white, you can choose any color for your borders. A clean white border is a classic choice, but using one of your brand colors can add a unique and professional touch.
• Mixing Orientations: This is the ideal solution for creating a carousel that includes a mix of landscape, portrait, and square photos. By adding borders to make every image a perfect 1:1 square, you ensure a clean and cohesive look as users swipe through, with no jarring jumps in size or orientation.
• More Than Just Borders: Many editing apps also offer tools to add text, frames, or other graphic elements, allowing you to elevate your multi-photo post even further.

Popular Apps for This Technique:

• Canva: A versatile graphic design tool perfect for creating custom-sized templates.
• Snapseed: Google's powerful photo editor has an "Expand" tool that can cleverly add borders.
• Dedicated "No Crop" Apps: Search your app store for "Square Fit," "Whitegram," or "InstaSize" for simple, focused tools.

Step-by-Step Guide (Using Canva as an Example):

1. Open Canva and create a new design. Choose the "Instagram Post (Square)" template, which is typically sized at 1080 x 1080 pixels.
2. Select a color for your background. This color will be your border. A clean white is a safe and popular choice.
3. Upload your first landscape photo and place it on the canvas. Drag its corners to resize it, and position it in the center so the background color creates perfectly even borders above and below.
4. Once you’re satisfied, export the new image and save it to your phone's camera roll.
5. Repeat this process for every photo you want in your carousel, landscape or otherwise. By the end, you'll have a collection of perfectly square images ready for Instagram.
6. Open Instagram, use the "Select Multiple" feature, and upload your newly created square images. They will appear just as you designed them, with no unwanted cropping.

Method 3: The Immersive Seamless Panorama (Advanced Technique)

For those truly epic panoramic landscape shots, a simple bordered post might not do it justice. The seamless panorama technique is a showstopper that splits one ultra-wide photo across multiple slides of a carousel. As the user swipes, the photo seems to move smoothly across their screen, creating an incredibly immersive and engaging experience.

How Does It Work?

The trick is to slice a single wide photo into several perfectly sized square chunks. When you upload these chunks in the correct order, Instagram’s carousel format stitches them back together visually. For example, to create a two-slide panorama, you'd start with an image that is twice as wide as it is tall (e.g., 2160 x 1080 pixels) and slice it into two 1080 x 1080 pixel squares.

While you can do this manually in programs like Adobe Photoshop, several apps have been designed to make this process incredibly simple.

Recommended Apps for Panorama Splitting:

• Unsquared for Instagram
• Panorama Crop
• Swipeable Panorama

Step-by-Step Guide with an App:

1. Download and open a panorama-splitting app.
2. Import the wide landscape photo you want to use.
3. The app will place a grid over your image. Simply tell it how many slides you want your panorama to span (e.g., 2, 3, 4, etc.).
4. The app will automatically cut the photo into perfectly sized pieces and save them to your camera roll, often titling them "1 of 3," "2 of 3," and so on.
5. Open Instagram, tap the plus icon, and use the "Select Multiple" feature.
6. Carefully select the image slices in their proper numerical order. This is the most important step! If you select them out of order, the panorama won't work.
7. Post your carousel. Now, when your followers swipe through, they’ll see one continuous, breathtaking image roll across their screen.

Creative Tip: Think about what appears on the final slide of your panorama. Since it’s the end of the visual journey, it’s a great spot to place a call-to-action ("Link in bio!") or a logo to reinforce your brand.

Tips for Creating High-Impact Landscape Carousels

Simply knowing the technical methods isn't enough. Here are a few strategic tips to make your multi-photo landscape posts truly stand out and engage your audience:

1. Tell a Visual Story

A carousel is an opportunity to guide your audience through a narrative. Don't just post ten random photos from a trip. Arrange them with intention. Start with a breathtaking wide shot to establish the scene, then use the following slides to show off closer details, different angles, or the progression of a sunset. Think of it as a small photo album.

2. Ensure Visual Consistency

For a professional and polished feel, make sure the photos within a single carousel share a similar editing style. Using the same preset or color grading across all images creates a cohesive look and feel, making the swiping experience seamless and aesthetically pleasing.

3. Lead with Your Strongest Image

The first photo in your carousel is your hook. It’s what appears in your followers' feeds and determines whether they stop scrolling and engage. Always place your most powerful, eye-catching, or intriguing landscape photo on the first slide to encourage that first swipe.

4. Write a Swipe-Worthy Caption

Your caption can be your ally. Actively encourage people to swipe through your carousel. You can use direct prompts like "Swipe to see the entire vista →" or ask a question that can only be answered by viewing all the photos. For example, "Can you spot the hidden waterfall in the last photo?"

Final Thoughts

Posting multiple landscape photos on Instagram no longer has to be a source of frustration. Whether you choose the quick "pinch-and-post" method directly in the app, gain full control with a 'no crop' editor, or create an immersive panorama, you now have the tools to share your wide-angle shots without compromise. The right technique will not only preserve your photo's original composition but also elevate your feed and capture your audience's attention.

Trying to juggle a mix of panoramic carousels, Reels, regular posts, and Stories can get overwhelming if you're managing it all on the fly. At Postbase, we designed our visual calendar to bring order to that chaos. We love being able to see our entire multi-platform strategy in one clean view, scheduling all our content - including complex carousels - far in advance from one simple dashboard. It gives us the space to focus on the creative side of social media instead of getting bogged down in the logistics.