Portrait or landscape? Framing car photos for listings and social media
Listing sites want wide photos and social feeds want tall ones. How to frame, crop and reuse car photos so one shoot works on every platform without cutting the car off.
A phone is held upright by default, and most people shoot cars that way. Most listing websites then display the photo in a wide frame and chop the top and bottom. The car ends up cropped, the roof is cut off, or the picture is shown tiny with bars on either side. A little thought about framing at the point of shooting saves all of that.
Shoot the main set in landscape
Phone sideways, Whole car in frame
Turn the phone sideways for all the exterior angles and the interior. This is the set for your website and the marketplaces.
Add three portrait frames for social
Hero angle, Front, Interior
The hero angle, the front and the interior, taken upright. These are for stories and short posts, not for the listing.
Leave a margin and let the crop decide
Step back, Crop later
If you are unsure, step back. It is much easier to crop a photo tighter than to extend one that was shot too close.
Landscape suits almost every listing site
Shoot landscape for the main set.
Listings
Cars are wide and low, and the thumbnails on search results are wide boxes. A landscape photo fills the frame, shows the whole car and looks right on desktop and mobile. This is the default for any listing.
Portrait fits stories, reels and phone-first feeds
Shoot a few portrait frames for social.
Stories
Stories, short video and the main feed on some platforms are tall. A landscape photo shown there leaves large empty bars. A tall photo fills the screen and gets more attention.
Square is the safe middle
Leave room around the car for any crop.
Square
Square crops show the car at a decent size in both wide and tall feeds, and several marketplaces display thumbnails as squares. Leave a margin of space around the car and a square crop will always work.
The real problem is cutting the car off
Always keep a safe margin.
Margin
Whichever orientation you choose, the car should never touch the edge of the frame. Leave a margin of about a tenth of the picture all round, so any platform can crop in without losing a bumper.
The original was taken in portrait on a phone, with the car small in the middle of a tall frame and the street behind it. After Carzbooth, a booth wall and floor are built around the tall frame, and the car is placed with room around it, so the photo can be cropped to square or wide without losing the front of the car.
A Viper shot upright on a cobbled street
You do not need two shoots. You need a margin around the car and a habit of turning the phone sideways for the listing. Everything else is a crop.
A simple framing routine
Where each orientation wins