How to Create Landscape Videos with Instagram Edits
Do you want to create beautiful landscape videos using the Instagram Edits iPhone app? It is surprisingly easy once you know the workflow.
While Instagram Edits is built primarily for vertical content, you can easily use it to produce widescreen, 4K horizontal masterpieces. This step-by-step guide covers the exact workflow to edit, add transitions, position text, and export your video flawlessly.
3 Ways to Reorient Your Clips (And the Quickest Method)
When you import your landscape photos or video clips into a new project, they will default to a vertical preview window. To fix this, you have three different options.
1. The Pinch and Zoom Method
You can manually pinch and zoom each clip on your screen to fill the frame sideways.
The Downside: This can be fiddly. You cannot see exactly how much you are zooming in, making it hard to keep your scale consistent across different clips.
2. The Transform Tool Method
For a more precise edit, you can use the built-in transform settings.
1. Select your clip.
2. Open the Transform tool.
3. Change the Scale to 178% (the exact size needed for landscape orientation).
4. Set the Rotation to exactly 90°.
3. The Crop Tool Method (The Best & Fastest Way) ⭐
If you want to save time, bypass the first two options entirely and use the crop menu.
1. Tap your clip and select the Crop tool.
2. Tap the Rotate button once.
3. Done! There is no need to manually pinch, zoom, or type in scale percentages.
Simply repeat this quick rotation process one-by-one for all the remaining clips in your timeline.
Mastering Transitions and Text
Editing sideways means you have to change how you think about text and transitions.
The Secret to Sideways Transitions
Because your timeline is sideways, your transitions are too. If you want a transition that eventually pans from right to left in your final landscape video, you must choose a transition that pans down while editing. It feels a bit confusing at first, but it will align perfectly once the final video is flipped.
Adding and Aligning Text
Instagram Edits offers great built-in typography and effects, but text layers do not feature a "Crop" or "Transform" tool in the bottom toolbar. You must rotate text manually:
1. Select your text and add your desired effects.
2. Use two fingers to manually pinch, rotate 90°, and position the text.
The Final Step: Exporting and Flipping
Once your timeline looks great, your transitions are smooth, and your text is aligned, you are ready to render.
The Quick Way
1. Export from the app and download the video to your device.
2. Open your iPhone’s native Photos app: Find your newly downloaded video (which will currently look sideways).
3. Tap Edit, open the Crop/Rotate tool, and rotate the video so it sits horizontally.
The Best Quality Way
There is a small bug when rotating a video using the iPhone Photos app. Sometimes, after rotating, the video loses a few pixels from its width and height. Not a big problem, but it may confuse some software. If you want to avoid the issue do this instead for the final rotation:
1. Open in Photos
2. Share > Export Unmodified Original
3. Save to Files
4. Long press on the video in Files and choose Quick Actions > Rotate Left
Your landscape video is now fully rendered and ready to share!
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