Guide

Which aspect ratio goes where, and why

A feed post, a story, a marketplace listing and a printed catalog page all want a different shape of the same photograph. Here's the reasoning behind each one — and how to stop cropping by hand.

Generate every size at once All guides

Written by the Vastram Studio teamPublished 4 August 20266 min read

Why do fashion photos need different aspect ratios?

Because each destination gives an image a differently shaped hole to sit in, and anything that doesn’t fit is either letterboxed or cropped. A story fills a whole phone screen and is very tall. A feed post is moderately tall. A marketplace listing thumbnail is taller than it is wide but less extreme. A printed catalog page is different again.

For clothing this matters more than for most products, because the subject is full-length. Crop a garment photograph badly and you lose the hem, the drape or the head — which is to say, you lose exactly the information the buyer was looking at.

The shapes

Five ratios, and what each is for

These are the formats Vastram Studio produces from a single generated photograph. The pixel sizes below are the target size for each — what you get when you generate natively in that shape.

Aspect ratios produced by Vastram Studio, their target pixel dimensions, and their intended destination
Aspect	Ratio	Target size	What it's for
Marketplace Listing	3:4	1200 × 1600	Marketplace product listings, where portrait thumbnails are the norm.
Instagram Feed	4:5	1080 × 1350	Instagram and Facebook feed posts — the tallest shape a feed will show without cropping.
Story & WhatsApp Status	9:16	1080 × 1920	Instagram and WhatsApp stories and status. Fills a phone screen edge to edge.
Website & PDF	2:3	1600 × 2400	Your own store gallery and printed or PDF catalog pages.
Square Post	1:1	1080 × 1080	Square feed posts and grid tiles, with the full outfit kept in frame.

You choose which of these shapes to generate — that's the master — right when you create the photograph, and every other size here is derived from it afterward. That's why the full outfit stays in frame in a square crop instead of being cut at the knee, whichever shape you started from.

The reasoning

How to choose without memorising a table

Portrait, almost always. A garment on a body is tall. Portrait framing spends more pixels on the product and less on the room. The only common exception is a flat-lay of a folded textile, which can be square.

The taller the frame, the more context you need. A 9:16 story has room above and below the garment, so it wants a setting. A 3:4 listing frame is tight on the product, so a clean background works better than a busy one.

Marketplaces want the product, not the styling. Clean background, no overlay, generous resolution so zoom is useful. Save the atmosphere for your own channels.

Your own channels want the styling. A feed post competes with everything else in the feed. Warmth, movement and a setting do work there that a clinical listing frame doesn’t.

Print wants height and resolution. A catalog page is closer to 2:3 than to anything social, and it needs enough pixels that the fabric survives being printed.

Platform requirements

Why this guide doesn't list marketplace pixel specs

Because by the time you read them, they may be wrong.

Minimum resolutions, background colour rules, file-size caps, image-count limits and disclosure requirements for AI-generated imagery are set independently by each marketplace and change without announcement. Every third-party article listing them — including any that quotes this one — starts going stale the day it’s published, and a listing rejected on a stale number costs more time than checking would have.

The reliable approach: read the current seller guidelines in the seller portal of each platform you list on, before you set up a workflow around them. What generalises across all of them is the shape and the discipline — portrait, generously sized, clean background, no overlaid text or logos on listing images.

One rule that holds everywhere

Keep marketplace uploads clean. Logos, phone numbers, prices and watermarks on listing images are commonly rejected regardless of platform. Put your branding on the images you send on WhatsApp and into PDF catalogs instead — see branded catalog images.

In practice

One photograph, every shape

The manual version of this is a crop job per destination per design, which is where most of an afternoon goes.

Every image generated in Vastram Studio can be downloaded in any of the shapes above. The crop is derived from the master at download time rather than being fixed when the image was made, so the full outfit stays in frame and older images benefit from any later improvement to how the shapes are produced.

You can also set a default destination, so the format you use most is pre-selected every time you download. If you’re producing a whole range, combine this with bulk generation — one job produces the collection, and each image comes out ready for wherever it’s going.

Questions

Image size questions

What aspect ratio should a clothing product photo be?

Portrait, in almost every case. A garment is taller than it is wide and is worn on a body that is taller than it is wide, so a portrait frame gives the product more pixels. Square and landscape crops throw away the top or bottom of the garment. The specific portrait ratio depends on where the image is going.

What exact pixel dimensions does each marketplace require?

Check each platform's current seller guidelines rather than any third-party list, including this one. Minimum resolutions, background rules and file-size limits are set per platform and change without notice — and a listing rejected on a stale spec costs more time than looking it up. What generalises is the shape: portrait, generously sized, on a clean background.

Can I just crop one image to every size?

You can, but a hand crop of a full-length garment shot to a square almost always cuts the hem or the head. Producing each shape from the master with the garment kept in frame is the difference between a square post that works and one where the kurta ends at the knee.

Should I upload the largest file I have?

Upload a generously sized image within the platform's file-size limit. Resolution is what makes zoom useful, and zoom is where a buyer decides whether the fabric is what they wanted. Don't downscale before uploading unless you have to.

Does the same photo work for a feed post and a story?

Only if it was produced for both. A 4:5 feed image placed in a 9:16 story leaves large empty bands, and cropping the feed image to fill the story cuts the garment. Generate or export both shapes from the same master instead.