Social media
Facebook Reels: prepare vertical images and cover artwork
By ResizeFox · Published
A Reel is a video, but it may contain still photographs, title cards and cover artwork. Prepare those assets for the composition of your video before you edit. A 1080 × 1920 canvas is a practical full-height 9:16 working size; it is not a claim that Facebook requires every Reel to use that exact resolution.
Quick reference
| Use | Size or purpose | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Vertical artwork | 1080 × 1920 px | 9:16 |
| Smaller vertical canvas | 720 × 1280 px | 9:16 |
| Landscape source example | 1920 × 1080 px | 16:9 |
Step by step
- Create a vertical project in your video editor and decide whether each source photo should fill the frame or fit inside it.
- If the photo should fill the frame, crop to 9:16 in an editor first. If the entire image matters, place it on a vertical canvas with deliberate margins instead.
- Use ResizeFox to resize the prepared still image to 1080 × 1920 with its aspect ratio locked. Keep a PNG for artwork that needs transparency in the editor.
- Import the image into your video editor. Add motion, captions and audio there; ResizeFox does not export MP4 files or resize videos.
- Preview the Reel on Facebook. Check the cover selection, interface overlays and any cropped thumbnail before publishing.
Fit versus fill: a large difference for landscape photos
A 1920 × 1080 landscape image cannot become a full-height portrait without a composition decision. Fitting it into a 1080-pixel-wide vertical canvas produces an image about 608 pixels high, leaving substantial space above and below. Filling that canvas instead crops much of the left and right sides.
Neither choice is automatically wrong. For a group photo, fitting may preserve everyone. For a product close-up, a tighter crop may work. Stretching the landscape image to 1080 × 1920 distorts the subject and is usually the least useful option.
Use preview-based margins
Keep essential titles and faces toward the central portion of your design. Interface buttons and captions can cover parts of the video, and their position can change. There is no universal margin in this guide: inspect the actual placement in the publishing preview.
If you are making an advertisement, use the current placement-specific specifications in Meta Ads Manager. Advertising specifications should not be treated as universal limits for ordinary posts.
Image extensions are not video settings
JPG and PNG describe your still asset. They do not specify video frame rate, codec or bitrate. Export the finished timeline using your video editor and the current Facebook upload requirements. Renaming an image from .jpg to .mp4 does not create a video.
See the tradeoffs yourself in the Image Compression Lab: compare text, gradients and transparent graphics with downloadable results.
Sources and further reading
Platform specifications and application rules can change. Refer to the current destination instructions; the worked calculations and preparation choices in this tutorial are not a guarantee of acceptance.