Every platform has its own idea of how an image should be sized. Upload the wrong dimensions and your subject gets cropped, your banner stretches, or your profile photo turns into a blurry circle. The fix is simple: resize to the right dimensions before uploading. Here is what you need for each major platform.
When you upload an image that is too large, the platform scales it down — often in ways that introduce more compression than necessary. When you upload one that is too small, the platform stretches it, making it look soft or pixelated. When the aspect ratio is wrong, automatic cropping cuts off whatever the algorithm considers least important, which is rarely what you would have chosen.
Resizing to the correct dimensions before uploading gives you control over how the image looks, produces smaller files, and avoids the platform's automatic processing working against you.
Instagram supports several formats depending on where the image appears. For feed posts, the portrait format (1080 × 1350 px, 4:5 ratio) takes up the most screen space in the feed and tends to perform better as a result. Square posts at 1080 × 1080 px are a safe default when you are not sure of the crop. Landscape posts at 1080 × 566 px show less of the image and are the least common choice. Stories and Reels always use the full-screen vertical format at 1080 × 1920 px. Profile photos display at 110 px on screen but should be uploaded at 320 × 320 px for sharpness on high-DPI displays.
Thumbnails are the most important image on YouTube — they are the primary driver of click-through rate. Upload at 1280 × 720 px (16:9), which meets YouTube's minimum for the "high resolution" label. Keep the key content — face, text, subject — within the central 1100 × 620 px area, as edges may be cropped on some devices. Channel banners should be 2560 × 1440 px, but only the central 1546 × 423 px is shown on desktop — design for that safe zone and treat the outer areas as background colour only.
Feed photo posts display best at 1200 × 630 px. Cover photos for both profiles and pages are 820 × 312 px on desktop, though they display differently on mobile, so keep important content centred and away from the edges. Facebook compresses images more aggressively than most platforms — upload at high JPG quality (85%+) to reduce the impact of their recompression.
Single images in a post display at their native ratio if it falls between 2:1 and 1:2. For a safe, uncropped result, use 1200 × 675 px (16:9). The header banner is 1500 × 500 px (3:1), and profile photos should be uploaded at 400 × 400 px — they display as a circle, so keep the subject centred and clear of the edges.
Post images work best at 1200 × 627 px. The personal cover photo is a wide 1584 × 396 px (4:1 ratio), while company cover photos are even wider at 1128 × 191 px. Profile and company logo images should be 400 × 400 px. LinkedIn tends to compress images less aggressively than other platforms, which means properly sized images look noticeably sharper than they do elsewhere.
TikTok is a vertical-first platform. Photo posts and video thumbnails both use the 9:16 format at 1080 × 1920 px. Profile photos are displayed as circles at 200 × 200 px — keep the subject well within the frame and avoid anything close to the edges.
A quick rule of thumb: square (1:1) works almost everywhere in a pinch. When in doubt, 1080 × 1080 px will display without cropping on every major platform, even if it is not the optimum format for any of them.
Uploading at camera resolution. A modern smartphone produces photos at 4000 × 3000 px or larger — far more than any platform needs. Uploading at full resolution wastes upload time and triggers more aggressive platform compression. Resize down before uploading.
Ignoring safe zones on banners. Cover photos on most platforms have content partially hidden by profile photos, navigation buttons, or different viewport sizes. Keep logos, faces, and text in the central portion of any banner image.
Scaling up from a small image. Resizing a 400 × 400 px image to 1200 × 1200 px does not add detail — it just makes the pixels larger and the result looks soft. Always start from the largest version of your image and size down.