Squaready Preps Your Landscape And Portrait Photos For Instagram
Squaready (Free) by FANG Inc. is an app to help you crop those portrait and landscape photos into square format, ready for Instagram (or not).
There's no doubt about it - Instagram is definitely popular and fun. But there's always been a small issue if you wanted to import a photo from your library instead of snapping on from Instagram itself - it had to be in the square format. Sometimes we get those amazing snaps that just can't be cropped into a square without leaving out some details, and to be replaced with black blocks around your photo. Well now there is a free and simple solution to making your photos Instagram-ready - Squaready!
Squaready greets you with a simple interface. All the basic functions are labeled so you can quickly learn to navigate throughout the app.
When you get a photo from your Photo Library into Squaready, there are plenty of options to help you prime that photo. The bottom toolbar will be your best friend, with seven options to apply to your photo.
First, you can choose a background color from the wheel and picker. This color will fill in the space around the photo when you resize it into a format that will be Instagram friendly. Then you can choose to crop the photo into a square with the your selected background colors on the top and bottom or a rectangle with the bars along the top and bottom or sides (depends on landscape or portrait). The third option will center the entire photo in the middle of the background color.
As you use these cropping methods, you will find edge guides as you tap and hold the photo and move it around. This is to help you align the image properly for several variants. It's useful, and it works.
Squaready also allows users to rotate the image clockwise or flip it horizontally. The last button will center the image properly on the canvas, no matter which crop option you ended up choosing.
When you're done with your image prepping, then it's time to save it. Tapping on the Save button will give you four options: For Instagram (JPEG 1024x1536 or PNG 1024x1536) or Square [in the Photo Album] (JPEG 1024x1536 or PNG 1024x1536). The Instagram options will be make it so that you don't need to do any realigning in Instagram, while Square will just be a square photograph with the borders in the color you chose.
While you're doing all that, there are cute little sound effects. Unfortunately, there is no toggle for the sound, so if it bothers you, you'll have to have your phone on silent.
The functionality set of Squaready is a bit limited, but the app is good at what it claims to do - prep your photos for the square format of Instagram without losing much detail. If you're the type of person to get tired of having black bars added to your photos and want it to be viewed the way it was meant to be viewed, then Squaready is your best bet. The borders on the Squaready images can be used to highlight the photo as well, and it makes your photos blend in more with the Instagram UI than black bars on landscape photos do.
Even if you're not an Instagram fan but would like some photos in a square format, it's good for that too. While it may not be full-size, 1024x1536 is still a respectable size.
Instagram fans and even square photo fans, this app is a must-have. Especially at the price of free, why not?
