Crop an image to 9:16 (full-screen vertical)

The full-screen vertical ratio

9:16 is 16:9 turned on its side: nine wide for every sixteen tall. It matches a phone screen exactly, so an image cropped to it covers the whole display in a story or reel with nothing letterboxed above or below.

This is the most aggressive common crop. A landscape photo loses almost all of its width to become 9:16, so it suits images that are already vertical or where a narrow central slice tells the story.

Leave room for interface overlays

Stories and reels stack interface on top of your image: a profile name and close button near the top, captions and action buttons near the bottom. Keep the key subject in the middle third of the 9:16 frame so platform controls do not cover it.

That central safe zone is the difference between a clean post and one where a caption sits across someone's face. Frame with the overlays in mind, even though they are not shown in the crop itself.

Crop to 9:16, then size it

A full-screen story or reel is commonly 1080x1920 pixels. Crop to 9:16 here, then resize to 1080x1920 so it uploads at the native size and stays sharp instead of being downscaled by the app.

The crop is done entirely in your browser, so nothing is uploaded. Frame the vertical, download, and post it as a story or reel.