How to choose a photo for your ad

Your photo is the first thing people notice as they scroll. This guide explains how Facebook and Instagram show your picture, what we do to fit it, and how to choose one that works.

How your ad appears on Facebook and Instagram

One picture, in the main feed of each app.

Your ad runs in the Facebook feed and the Instagram feed: the main stream of posts people scroll through, mostly on their phones. Both show your picture in a 4:5 shape, a rectangle a little taller than it is wide. Meta, the company that runs Facebook and Instagram, recommends this shape for feed ads. It takes up more of a phone screen than a square or a wide picture does.

The two apps arrange the words differently around the same picture. On Facebook, your post text sits above the picture, and the headline and button sit below it. On Instagram, Admaker Lab's name sits above the picture and your post text sits below it, starting with your name. Instagram sometimes leaves the headline out, so your Instagram post text opens with your name and your offer. You see both versions before you pay.

FACEBOOK FEED

Admaker Lab · Sponsored

Your post text

Your picture
4:5

Your headline [Button]

INSTAGRAM FEED

admkr.la · Sponsored

Your picture
4:5

[Button]

Your name: your post text

We run picture ads in the two main feeds only, not in Stories or Reels.

How we fit your photo to the 4:5 shape

Most photos are a different shape, so AI.FRED fits yours to the frame.

Before fitting your photo, AI.FRED, our AI art director, finds the faces, any lettering (such as a sign), and the main subject, and keeps all of them whole. In the drawings below, the dashed line is the part of your photo that shows in the ad.

A tall photo from your phone

Usually a thin strip is trimmed from the top and bottom.

Most phones take upright photos a little taller than 4:5, so very little is lost. Keep the important things away from the very top and bottom edges.

A wide photo

Cropped in, or shown whole above a panel.

If every face, all the lettering, and the main subject fit after cropping, AI.FRED crops in. If they don't, he shows the whole photo across the width, above a solid panel in a color taken from the photo's edge, and your name or logo goes on the panel.

A square photo

A little of each side is trimmed, or it's shown whole above a panel.

A square photo is handled the same way as a wide one, but less of it is lost, because a square is close to 4:5.

Where your name or logo goes

In the corner of your photo with the least going on.

Your logo, or your name if you don't have a logo, goes on the picture in the corner that covers the least of any faces, lettering, and the main subject. A photo with some plain space, such as sky, a wall, or a tabletop, gives it a good place to sit. Your logo is used exactly as you uploaded it, in its own colors; we never redraw or recolor it. The Bigger and Smaller buttons change its size.

Making your photo look its best with ENHANCE

Up to four adjusted versions of your photo, and you choose.

Tap ENHANCE to see your photo clearer, brighter, warmer, or framed closer in. Each version adjusts the light, color, or framing of the whole photo; nothing in your photo is redrawn or changed. Step through the versions with the arrows. The one showing is the one that runs, and your original photo is always one of the choices.

What makes a good ad photo

A clear picture of the real thing, easy to understand at a glance on a phone.

Show the real thing. A photo of your actual product, shop, work, or event space tells people exactly what they'll get. It works better than a generic picture.
Pick one clear subject and let it fill much of the frame. Your picture is small on a phone screen, so a busy scene full of small things reads as clutter.
Use good light. Daylight works best: near a window indoors, or in open shade outdoors. Dim indoor photos look grainy on a phone, and harsh midday sun casts hard shadows.
Hold your phone upright. An upright photo is close to the 4:5 shape, so almost nothing gets trimmed.
Leave a little room around your subject. A photo cropped tight to the edges leaves no space to trim and no plain corner for your name or logo.
Keep it sharp. Wipe the lens, tap the screen on your subject to focus, and hold still. A blurry photo looks careless, even when your business isn't.
Choose a plain background. A clean wall, table, or sky keeps attention on your subject.
Show people, with their permission. Real customers, your team, or you at work draw attention, as long as everyone recognizable has agreed to be in your ad.

Ideas by kind of ad:

An event: the venue set up and ready, a crowd from last year's event, or the performers, with their permission.
A service or trade: a finished job, your work truck, or you at work.
A shop or restaurant: your best seller on a plain table, a favorite dish, or your storefront in daylight.
A home for sale or rent: the best room in daylight, or the front of the house from across the street.
Something you're selling: the item alone, against a plain background, in daylight.

Photos to avoid

These are hard to read in a feed, or we can't run them.

A photo of a printed flyer or poster. Its small text is unreadable at phone size. Put the details in your ad's words instead, and upload the flyer to your free web page.
Pictures covered in text. Meta no longer limits how much text an ad picture can carry, but a picture with little or no text is understood faster. AI.FRED adds at most one short line to a photo, and your offer goes in the post text and headline, where both apps show it clearly at any size.
Screenshots, collages of several photos, and heavy filters. They look cluttered or unnatural in a feed.
Photos that aren't yours to use. See the next section.

Your photo must be yours to use

We check this before your ad runs.

Use a photo you took yourself, or one you have permission to use. A photo from a Google search, another business's website, or a stock photo site you haven't paid for isn't yours to use. Anyone recognizable in your photo should agree to be in your ad. We can't run an ad with a photo that belongs to someone else, or one that shows a celebrity.

No photo? AI.FRED makes a picture for you

A poster of your words, or a drawn picture.

If you don't have a photo, AI.FRED designs a picture from your words: either your name and offer set as a poster on a plain color, or a drawn picture of the kinds of things you mentioned, with room for your words. He never draws your actual product, a person, or any lettering, so a made picture never shows something that isn't real.

Your logo

The cleanest, largest version you have.

A PNG file with a see-through background works best. It sits on the picture without a white box around it.
Use the largest file you have. A small logo copied from a website can look fuzzy. If yours is too small, we'll tell you.
Simple logos read best on a phone. If your logo has small words or fine lines, upload its simplest version, such as just the symbol or just the name.
No logo? Type your name the way your customers know it, and we set it in clean type.

Your flyer, for your free web page

It goes on your web page, not in the ad.

If you already have a flyer, you can upload it as your free web page instead of having AI.FRED build the page from your ad. Upload the original file if you have it. If you're photographing a printed flyer, shoot it straight on, in good light, with the whole flyer in the frame. We check your flyer before your web page goes up.

File checklist

Photos and logos: JPG or PNG, up to 10 MB each. A photo from your phone's camera roll usually works as it is.
Flyers: JPG, PNG, or WebP, up to 10 MB.
Size: at least 1080 pixels across. Photos from any recent phone are much larger than that. We size the final picture for Facebook and Instagram for you.
One photo per ad. ENHANCE can make up to four versions of it.
Pictures only. We don't run video ads yet.

Start your ad