So I have a range of images and they are in a range of different ratios. Some are portrait, some are landscape. Some are panoramic and some are almost square. Now I want to put them onto Instagram and I want to automate the process.
Go ahead and Google how to change the ratio of an image or how to change an image into a square without cropping and you’ll get 100’s of pages and frankly they’re as much use as a wet paper bag.
So here is how you can automate the process within Photoshop to turn every photo in a folder into a square one without cropping. You can pick a colour of background/border of your choosing when creating the action.
- Open Photoshop
- Open one of your images that you wish to change
- Open the ‘Actions’ window (Alt + F9)
- Click the + icon and start the process of creating a new action. I called mine ‘White Square’ as I make any extra space into a white border. You can do what you like.
- Right-click the Background layer and select Duplicate Layer.
- Double-click the Background layer to unlock it and select it.
- Press Ctrl /Cmd + T to start transforming the selected layer. Hold down Shift, rotate the layer 90 degrees and press Enter to commit the transformation.
- Perform Image > Reveal All to make the canvas a square.
- Choose your foreground colour OR Press D to reset the background and foreground colours (for a black foreground).
- Press Alt + Backspace to fill the selected layer with the selected foreground.
- Perform Layer > Flatten Image to flatten the image.
- Save and close the image
- Stop recording the action.
All done.
Now you can ‘File -> Automate -> Batch…’ a whole folder. Pick the folder and pick your new actions, then let Photoshop do it’s thing.