4:5
Also known as: portrait ratio, feed portrait
The tall portrait ratio used for feed posts, shorter than full vertical video and the shape that fills most of a phone screen.
Updated
What it means
4:5 is the compromise portrait shape. Taller than square and shorter than a full-height Vertical video (9:16), it was the Instagram feed maximum for years and the number stuck even as the limits moved.
The reason it exists is screen area against scrolling. A taller post occupies more of a feed without pushing the next item entirely off screen, and platforms tune that balance deliberately rather than by accident.
Like every other shape it comes from a crop. An Aspect ratio crop from a widescreen original decides what survives, and nothing records in it natively.
How it works in practice
Centre framing is what makes it possible. A subject in the middle of a 4K video frame survives the crop; one at the edge does not survive the crop at all.
It is the safe choice when one upload has to serve several places. A 4:5 version works in a feed and on a page, where a full vertical version suits only one of them.
Text placement follows the shape. Safe zones differ between 4:5 and full vertical, so a caption positioned for one gets covered in the other by an interface element.
What to watch out for
Action context goes first. The width that explained a jump is what gets removed, and a tall frame of a rider in the air says very little about the feature. Scale is the first casualty.
It is not full vertical and gets confused with it. A YouTube Shorts or reel slot wants the taller shape, and a 4:5 video there sits with bars on both ends.
A tracked crop can lock onto the wrong person. Smart crop follows whatever it judges important, and in a lineup of four riders that is not reliably the one the edit is about.
How RawClip handles it
A portrait version is produced by cropping the assembled sequence with the subject tracked, rather than by reframing each clip. Which tall shape is wanted is worth stating, since 4:5 and full vertical are not interchangeable on any platform.