Does any one have any expertise on taking square pictures for Michaels? I am not having any luck with taking the pictures and making them square when I resize them. They seem to be stretched a little on the on the up and down. Can someone point me in the right direction for taking them with a phone camera?
Thanks, Artie
You can use Canva (paid) to resize in proportion
OR
I just use my native phone app to crop to square, meaning that when I take the photo in 3:4, I frame it so that everything that I need is still in frame when I crop to 1:1
OR
Did you mean something else that I’m missing? 
Canva is very good. We use that to resize the documents we share with the consumer on our website.
It’s the best (business) $15/mo I spend.
We use it as a guest of the company that works on our website. So it’s $0.00 per month.
I always edit my photos in Photoshop, so I can resize them to a square format. There are free photo editing program you can use to. Don’t know how to edit/size the photo with a phone.
You can also try to take the photos and crop them to have enough spaces between the item and the sides of the photo, then even if the photo is not totally square, when it was displayed in Michaels’ square frame only the extras space is cropped off.
I use Photoshop.
that’s a square.
For those using a PC. Microsoft Paint 3D is free and can do the same function.
Open your image with Paint 3D, click canvas, match your H/W and make sure you lock the aspect ratio and resize image.
Then, if it’s not exactly the way you want it, you can crop it down and resize it again to the size you need for whatever marketplace you are on. For example - Amazon - 2000X2000.
We use GIMP. It is an open source program that does most of what photoshop does.
Thanks everyone for your replies. I will be seeing what I did wrong. lol
So I guess when you need to make something square you say “Bring out the Gimp”?
GROANS…
That is terrible. Just terrible.
Bet you will never think of that program in the same way. LMAO!!!
We’ve always been a tough crowd.
That’s why Katie kicked us out.
Late to the game, but some pro tips.
We do use Photoshop but GIMP works just as well.
You can distort your images up to 10% and no one will notice. This from 30+ years in imaging. Do not go further, the eye will see the distortion.
We are running into the same issue with Michaels, manipulating many images to deal with what they want. Be sure to save them for other usage. By leveraging your work it helps too ease the pain.
For instance, Instagram likes square images. So does Amazon Posts.
^^ This is what I did. A while back I redid all of my main listing images. I kept them in a 4x5 ratio, but with enough extra space that a square crop is fine. They work for Etsy (search and storefront), Shopify, Michael’s, etc.
If you hold down shift while “drawing/outlining” a square tool in photoshop it will make it a perfect size square.
My iPhone as well has a setting for changing the aspect ratio. I almost always keep it set now on square because it makes my photos in my kids photo books nicer (3x3 grid in a square Shutterfly photo book lol)
Thanks for the tips.
