You've spent hours photographing your new collection. The shots are clean, the styling is on point — and then you open Instagram, upload the first photo, and it crops the model's feet off. Or you send a PDF lookbook to a stockist and the product grid looks pixelated and misaligned. The problem is almost never the photography. It's the image sizes and layout decisions that happen after the shoot. Get those wrong and even a great collection looks unprofessional. This guide gives you the exact specs you need — for every format your brand actually uses — and shows you how to build your product grid without touching Photoshop.
Why Image Sizes Matter More Than You Think
Every platform and format has its own rules. Upload the wrong dimensions and you get unwanted cropping, blurry exports, inconsistent collages, or a feed that looks chaotic instead of curated. For fashion brands, visual consistency isn't just aesthetic — it's the difference between a customer who trusts you enough to buy and one who scrolls past.
The real pain hits when you're preparing a drop or a seasonal catalogue: you have dozens of product images in different aspect ratios, shot on different backgrounds, and you need to build a cohesive photo grid fast. Doing that manually in Photoshop — resizing, aligning, exporting — can eat an entire afternoon.
The Core Image Sizes Every Fashion Brand Should Know
Instagram Feed (Square and Portrait)
- Square: 1080 × 1080 px (1:1 ratio) — safe and consistent across all devices.
- Portrait: 1080 × 1350 px (4:5 ratio) — takes up more screen real estate in the feed; ideal for single product shots.
- Minimum resolution: 72 dpi for screen, but export at the highest quality your file allows.
- File format: JPG or PNG, under 8 MB.
Instagram Stories and Reels
- Vertical (9:16): 1080 × 1920 px — the standard for Stories and Reels.
- Keep key content (logos, prices, CTAs) within the central safe zone: roughly 1080 × 1420 px, centred.
- If you're building a product layout or collage for Stories, design at 1080 × 1920 px from the start — don't scale up a square grid.
Lookbooks and PDF Catalogues
- A4 portrait: 2480 × 3508 px at 300 dpi — the standard for print-ready lookbooks.
- A4 landscape: 3508 × 2480 px at 300 dpi — common for two-product spreads.
- For digital-only catalogues (sent by email or viewed on screen), 150 dpi is acceptable and keeps file sizes manageable.
- Always embed images as RGB for digital; switch to CMYK only if going to print.
E-commerce Product Images
- Shopify recommended: 2048 × 2048 px (1:1) for zoom functionality.
- WooCommerce: minimum 800 × 800 px, ideally 1200 × 1200 px or larger.
- Use consistent dimensions across all SKUs — a product grid where images are different sizes looks broken and reduces conversion.
- PNG for white or transparent backgrounds; JPG for lifestyle shots.
TikTok and Pinterest
- TikTok video/cover: 1080 × 1920 px (9:16).
- Pinterest pins: 1000 × 1500 px (2:3) — tall pins perform better in the feed.
Building a Product Grid: Where Brands Lose Hours
Knowing the specs is step one. The real challenge is assembling the layout — especially when you're presenting a full collection. A typical scenario: you have 12 product images for a new drop, all shot slightly differently. You need a clean photo grid for Instagram, a 9:16 collage for Stories, and a two-page spread for a PDF catalogue. That's three different layouts, three different export sizes, and if you're doing it manually, three separate Photoshop files.
Most small and mid-sized fashion brands don't have a designer on call for every drop. They need a tool that handles the layout logic without requiring design skills — something that lets you drag, arrange, and export in the right format without resizing everything by hand.
How Grider Solves This
Grider is a browser-based grid and catalogue editor built specifically for this workflow. No installation, no account required, no watermarks. Here's how it works in practice:
- Open the editor. Go to griderapp.com/editor.html — it loads instantly in your browser.
- Choose your format. Select the output you need: square feed post (1:1), portrait (4:5), Stories/Reels (9:16), or a custom size for your lookbook or catalogue. The canvas adjusts automatically.
- Upload your product images. Drop your JPGs or PNGs directly onto the canvas. Grider supports high-resolution files so your export quality is never compromised.
- Pick a grid layout. Choose from pre-built product grid templates — 2-column, 3-column, mixed layouts, full-bleed — or build your own arrangement.
- Drag to reorder. Rearranging the product collage is as simple as dragging tiles. Test different sequences in seconds — useful when you're deciding which hero product goes first.
- Export in high resolution. Download your finished layout as a PNG or JPG, sized and ready for the platform you chose. No quality loss, no watermark, free.
The result: what used to take 90 minutes in Photoshop takes under 10 minutes in Grider — and you get consistent, on-brand layouts across every format your collection needs.
Quick Reference: Image Size Cheat Sheet
- Instagram Feed Square: 1080 × 1080 px
- Instagram Feed Portrait: 1080 × 1350 px
- Instagram Stories / Reels / TikTok: 1080 × 1920 px
- Pinterest Pin: 1000 × 1500 px
- E-commerce product (Shopify): 2048 × 2048 px
- Lookbook / Catalogue (digital PDF): 2480 × 3508 px @ 150–300 dpi
Three Rules to Keep Your Brand Grid Consistent
- Standardise your shoot output. Brief your photographer on a fixed crop ratio before the shoot — 4:5 for feed, 9:16 for video content. It's far easier to crop in than to crop out.
- Always design at the final export size. Never scale a 1080 × 1080 px grid up to 1080 × 1920 px for Stories. Start at the right canvas size from the beginning.
- Use the same layout template across a collection drop. Consistency in your product grid signals professionalism and makes your brand recognisable at a glance.
Getting image sizes right is one of those unsexy but non-negotiable foundations of a well-run fashion brand. It affects how your products look on every touchpoint — the feed, the lookbook, the stockist presentation, the product page. The good news is that once you have the specs locked in and a fast layout tool in your corner, it stops being a problem you think about and becomes something that just works.
Ready to build your next product grid in minutes? Open the Grider editor now — no sign-up, no watermark, free. Upload your collection images, choose your layout, and export a catalogue or social collage that actually looks like your brand.