How to Post a Panorama on Instagram

Posting that stunning, wide-angle panorama shot to Instagram feels like it should be simple, but the app’s standard square and vertical formats just don’t do it justice. Instead of cropping your epic landscape or city skyline into a tiny box, you can turn it into an engaging, swipeable experience. This guide will walk you through exactly how to post a seamless panorama on Instagram using the carousel feature, from easy mobile apps to more advanced desktop tools.

Why Swipeable Panoramas Are Gold for Engagement

Before we get into the "how," let's talk about the "why." A swipeable panorama isn't just a cool visual trick, it's a powerful way to make your content work harder for you. In a world of endless scrolling, panoramas are a pattern interrupt. They stop people in their tracks because they look different from a standard single-image post.

Here’s the breakdown of why they’re so effective:

• They Increase “Time on Post”: When someone stops to swipe through multiple frames of your panorama, they're spending more time interacting with your content. Instagram's algorithm pays close attention to this metric. The longer someone engages with your post, the more likely Instagram is to show it to more of their followers and even feature it on the Explore page.
• They Spark Curiosity: The first slide of a panorama hints that there’s more to see. This encourages the swipe, a micro-action that signals engagement. You’re essentially creating an interactive experience, inviting your audience to reveal the full image themselves.
• They Showcase Your Work Beautifully: For photographers, travel bloggers, real estate agents, or anyone with a sweeping visual to share, cropping just doesn’t cut it. A panorama allows you to present your subject with the scale and drama it deserves, telling a more complete story without compromising on quality or composition.

By transforming a single photo into a multi-slide carousel, you're not just posting an image - you're creating an interactive piece of content that hooks your audience and gets the algorithm's attention.

How to Post a Panorama: The Step-by-Step Method

The secret to a swipeable panorama on Instagram lies in slicing your single wide image into multiple, perfectly cropped squares or rectangles. When uploaded as a carousel post in the correct order, they appear seamless as a user swipes through them. Here's how to do it.

Step 1: Get Your Panorama Ready

First things first, you need a panorama image. Most modern smartphones have a built-in "Pano" mode in their native camera app. Here's a quick tip for getting a great shot:

• Move Slowly &, Steadily: When capturing a panorama, rotate your body or hands slowly and smoothly. Avoid jerky movements, as this can cause visible stitching errors or "ghosting" in the final image. Keep the guide arrow on the line.
• Keep Your Level: Try to keep your phone perfectly level as you pan across the scene. Tilting it up or down can result in a distorted or curved horizon line.
• Good Lighting is Your Friend: Panoramas work best in evenly lit environments. Scenes with drastic differences in light and shadow (like shooting into a bright sun) can sometimes confuse your phone’s camera, leading to exposure issues.

Once you have your photo, save it to your camera roll. It will look like a very wide, skinny image.

Step 2: Slice Your Image Using a Simple App

You don't need fancy desktop software to cut your panorama into pieces. There are plenty of free and paid mobile apps designed specifically for this purpose. They make the process quick and painless, automatically cutting your image into perfectly sized slices.

A Few Popular App Options:

• For iOS: Unfold, Panora, or Coolgram are great choices. They're intuitive and give you different slicing options.
• For Android: PanoramaCrop, Panorama Post, or 9Square are highly-rated apps that get the job done easily.

For this tutorial, let’s imagine we’re using an app like PanoramaCrop. The process is very similar across all of them:

1. Open the App and Select Your Panorama: Launch the app and grant it access to your photo library. Choose the wide panorama image you want to slice.
2. Choose the Number of Slices: The app will show you a preview of your image with overlays. You’ll be able to choose how many slices you want to split it into. For most horizontal panoramas, 2 to 4 slices work best. Any more than that and you might lose your audience's attention.
3. Select the Aspect Ratio: You will typically have a choice between 1:1 (square) or 4:5 (portrait). The 4:5 ratio is often better because it takes up more vertical screen space on Instagram, making your post more impactful.
4. Save the Slices: Once you're happy with the preview, hit the "Save" or "Slice" button. The app will automatically slice the image and save each piece to your camera roll as a separate file, usually numbered in the correct order (e.g., photo_01, photo_02, photo_03).

Step 3: Upload the Slices to Instagram

Now that your panoramic image is sliced into individual photos, it’s time to assemble them on Instagram.

1. Open Instagram and tap the ‘+’ icon to create a new post.
2. In your gallery, tap the ‘Select Multiple’ icon (it looks like a stack of squares).
3. IMPORTANT: Select your sliced images in the correct order, from left to right. Your phone’s gallery should show them in sequence. The first slice of your panorama should have a ‘1’ on it, the second slice a ‘2’, and so on. This is the most common place people make a mistake, so double-check the order is correct.
4. Tap ‘Next’. You'll see a preview of your carousel. Swipe through it to make sure the images line up perfectly and create a smooth, seamless effect. Everything should flow from one slide to the next.
5. Add any filters or edits you desire (though it's best to edit the full panorama before slicing for consistency) and tap ‘Next’ again.

Step 4: Add Your Finishing Touches

Your hard work is done, but a great caption and a few other details will make your panorama post even more effective.

• Write a “Swipe” Call-to-Action (CTA): Don’t assume people will know to swipe! Start your caption with a simple, direct CTA like "Swipe left to see the whole view!" or "➡️ It’s a panoramic, swipe to explore!" A little pointer emoji goes a long way.
• Tell a Story: Use the caption to give context to your image. Where was it taken? What was happening? A good story makes the visual even more compelling.
• Add Your Hashtags and Location: Don't forget the basics. Add relevant hashtags and a location tag to help new audiences discover your amazing panoramic post.

Finally, hit ‘Share’, and watch your beautiful, swipeable panorama go live.

For the Pros: Slicing a Panorama With Photoshop

If you prefer a desktop workflow or want pixel-perfect control, Adobe Photoshop is the tool for the job. Using the Slice Tool gives you absolute precision over how your panorama is divided.

1. Setting Up Your Document

First, open your panorama in Photoshop. Before you slice, you need to decide on the final dimensions. The key is to work backward from Instagram’s ideal post sizes.

• The maximum width is 1080 pixels.
• The ideal vertical (portrait) height is 1350 pixels (a 4:5 aspect ratio).

Crop your main panorama so its height is exactly 1350 pixels. The width can be whatever it needs to be to maintain the composition. For example, if you want to create a 3-part panorama, your total image width should be 3240 pixels (1080px × 3).

2. Using the Slice Tool

1. Select the Slice Tool from the toolbar (it’s usually nested with the Crop Tool).
2. Right-click on your image and select "Divide Slice..."
3. A dialog box will appear. You can divide the image horizontally or vertically. To create a left-to-right swipe, select "Divide Vertically Along."
4. Enter the number of slices you want. For example, check the box and enter "3 slices down, evenly spaced."
5. Photoshop will create non-destructive guides over your image, showing you exactly where the cuts will be made.

3. Exporting the Slices

The final step is to save each slice as an individual file.

• Go to File >, Export >, Save for Web (Legacy)...
• In the Save for Web window, choose an appropriate format like JPEG and set your quality (around 70-80 is often a good balance for web).
• Click ‘Save’. Photoshop will ask where you want to save the files. It will automatically create a folder called "images" and place your numbered slices inside (e.g., yourimage_01.jpg, yourimage_02.jpg).

From there, transfer the images to your phone and follow Step 3 of the previous section to upload them to Instagram in the correct order.

Final Thoughts

Creating a swipeable panorama on Instagram is a fantastic way to make your feed more dynamic and encourage your audience to engage with your content. By slicing a wide photo into a seamless carousel, you break the typical format of the feed and create a memorable visual experience that showcases your work in full detail.

Planning compelling posts like panoramas often happens outside of the last-minute scramble to find something to share today. Seeing your content, including multi-image carousels, laid out in a calendar is one of the best ways to build a consistent and visually stunning feed. For this, we designed Postbase with a visual planner that lets you drag, drop, and schedule all your content, including video and carousels, weeks in advance. It makes managing even complex posts feel simple, so you can focus on creativity instead of worrying about publish times.