How To Add White Background for Instagram in Lightroom
Recently, I’ve noticed a few users, particularly photographers, have their images set on a white background for Instagram. There are a few reasons for doing this – the white background sets off the image nicely with a border, and it also removes the restrictions on image ratios that Instagram imposes.
I looked for a convenient way to do this directly from Lightroom, but most of the solutions I found used the ‘Print’ function to add the background, and were quite unwieldy. What I was looking for was a one-stop Export preset that would do all this for me.
Enter ImageMagick
ImageMagick is a command-line application for manipulating images. It’s basically Photoshop for the command line, and has many features, including resizing, changing colour depth and format conversions. The Photographer’s Toolbox makes a plugin called LR/Mogrify 2 that encapsulates and exposes the capabilities of ImageMagick in Lightroom.
The plugin is ‘donationware’ in that it is fully functional, but has a limit of 10 images in one export. Donating to the project on the Photographer’s Toolbox website will provide you with a serial number to remove this restriction.
Installing the Plugin
To install the plugin, open the zip file and move the plugin file to somewhere convenient. I put mine in an ‘LR Plugins’ folder in my Pictures folder.
Next, In Lightroom, select Export from the File menu and click on Plug-in Manager… button at the bottom of the Export dialog.
![](https://stuarttevendale.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Export_Dialog.png)
Click the Add button and navigate to where you’ve put the LR/Mogrify 2 plugin. Select it, and click the Add Plugin button. You’ll now see the LR/Mogrify 2 plugin shown in the Plug-In Manager dialog. Click the Done button, and you’ll be returned to the Export dialog.
![](https://stuarttevendale.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Add_Plugin.png)
![](https://stuarttevendale.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Select_Plugin.png)
![](https://stuarttevendale.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Add_Plugin_Showing_Plugin.png)
You’ll now see the various ImageMagick options for LR/Mogrify 2 appear in the Export dialog.
![](https://stuarttevendale.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Plugin_Parts.png)
Create a New Preset
The LR/Mogrify 2 plugin can do loads of things using ImageMagick – the Photographer’s Toolkit webpage has details of these. Here, though, I’ll focus on the settings I use to add a white background to my Instagram images.
I’ve added a new plugin called IG Square BG, using the Add button. For the top couple of sections, I’ve set the plugin to save the exported file into a specific folder, and to give it a name based on the file date with a sequence number. This is just my personal preference, and you’re free to use whatever suits your workflow here.
![](https://stuarttevendale.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Add_Preset.png)
You’ll need to add the Background Canvas action to your preset. Do this by selecting your preset, then selecting Background Canvas in the Post-Process Actions List, and clicking the Insert button. You’ll see the Background Canvas options appear in the preset settings panel.
![](https://stuarttevendale.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Add_Part_to_Preset.png)
I’m aiming for an exported image size of 1080 x 1080 pixels, so I’ve set the Background Canvas options to that size. You’ll also need to change the background colour to white, as this defaults to black.
To give a small border around the largest dimension of the image, I’ve set the Image Sizing options to resize the image to 1000 pixels along its longest edge. This will give me a 40 pixel border. You can adjust these values to suit.
![](https://stuarttevendale.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Set_Preset_Params.png)
Saving the Preset
Once you’ve set the parameters for the preset, it’s important to save it, otherwise the changes won’t stick. Right-Click on the preset name, and select ‘Update with Current Settings’ in the popup menu. It’s not obvious that this needs to be done to save the preset settings!
![](https://stuarttevendale.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Update_Plugin.png)
Adding the White Border & Exporting
To export an image, simply select an image in Lightroom, and select Export with Preset from the File menu. Select your newly-created preset from the popup menu. Your image will then be exported ready for Instagram with a square, background. The background in the image below is actually grey, as you’ll see, so that it shows up against the white background of this blog page.
![](https://stuarttevendale.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Instagram-Content-January-01-15-1024x1024.jpg)
Hopefully, you’ll find this article useful. If you’ve got any questions or comments, pop them in the comments below.
This article is based on Lightroom Classic V11.1 and LR/Mogrify 2 V5.10