Instagram to soon test ultra-tall photos for compatibility with reels

Photo and video sharing platform Instagram might have halted its controversial redesign, but that doesn't mean the company plans to stop focusing on full-screen content.

According to The Verge, during the weekly Ask Me Anything, CEO Adam Mosseri confirmed that Instagram will begin testing ultra-tall 9:16 photos "in a week or two."

"You can have tall videos, but you cannot have tall photos on Instagram. So we thought maybe we should make sure that we treat both equally," Mosseri said.

Currently, Instagram tops out around 4:5 when displaying vertical images that have been cropped accordingly. But introducing support for slimmer, taller 9:16 photos will help them fill the entire screen as you scroll through the app's feed.

The Verge reports that some photographers have criticized Instagram's TikTok-like redesign for the way it forces all photos to awkwardly display in a 9:16 frame. The new feed also added overlay gradients to the bottom of posts so that text would be easier to read. But that clashed with the original appearance of photographers' work.

During the course of Instagram's shaky redesign test with users, Mosseri admitted more than once that the full-screen experience was less than ideal for photos. Now Instagram very much still intends to showcase that ultra-tall photo experience, but without mandating it across the board, as per The Verge.