instagram cheat using portrait orientation

I am a little bit of an Instagram addict. The only thing that sometimes bothers me about Instagram is that I cannot post an entire photo that is in portrait orientation, like the one above. Sometimes I take the photo using my generic iPhone camera app instead of with the Instagram app, and then when I want to post it to Instagram, I end up with something like this:

I don’t want to post it like that. I want to post the whole thing. First-world problems, people.

Since Instagram will not let me scale my whole photo into the square, I tried to find an app that would do it for me. I could not find one. (If you know of one, you are smarter than I am.) A wise man once said to me: “There are two types of people in this world: those who see the problem and those who find a solution.” Or something like that. (And now that man is chuckling to himself because I called him “wise”.)

I had a brilliant idea. If I find in my Photos folder the photo I want to post, and turn my iPhone to the side, I will see it like this:

If I take a screen shot (hold the on/off button and push the home button), and open the screen shot in Instagram, I can get the whole portrait-orientated (is that a word?) photo in the Instagram window, with little black bars on each side.

Voila!

I know, I know. I am a genius. Or, I’m just telling you something you already know. Or, you don’t use Instagram and I made you read a really nerdy post for nothing. YOU’RE WELCOME.

Filed under: I'm a nerd