To create a Lightroom export preset for Instagram, start by going into the crop dialog by pressing R in Lightroom. Next, navigate to the crop aspect ratio and choose 1:1, creating a square crop.
To create the preset, right-click on the image and choose “Export.” For Instagram, choose to rename the image. In the file template editor, choose Filename and Custom Text. When entering custom text, choose 1080_Instagram. Choose JPEG, sRGB and Quality at 80. Choose Resize to 1080px on the long edge, which is perfect for Instagram.
Quick Tip: Export images at 1080px for Instagram.
After creating the proper settings for the Instagram Export, it is time to make a preset. In the Left Column, choose “Add,” then create a folder name and give the preset a name. In this case we use 1080 Instagram.
The next time you need to send an image off to Instagram, simply use this export preset!
Additional Export Presets
In this tutorial, we create multiple export presets based on the images’ final destination.
For general web use, we create a preset that resizes images to 1200px on the long edge. This is large enough to display well on the web, but not large enough to take forever to load on a webpage.
We also create a preset for Full-Size JPEGs that is perfect for print or delivery to clients!