How To Make A Reel With Photos? [Complete Guide]

Instagram reels are well known for their short videos that invite everyone to participate in cultural trends, collaborate with the community, engage the audience, and showcase new ideas visually in an appealing way.

But if you are one of many with a spiral of pictures and videos to flaunt but face a tough time creating an engaging reel and staying in trend, this blog will help you quickly create an Instagram reel with photos.

This guide takes you through 3 apps where you can make a reel with photos, including the Instagram app, Canva, and VN.

• If you want to create a basic reel, Instagram is your app.
• Want to make a template-based professional-grade Reel? Canva is your go-to place.
• And if you want to create a reel from scratch and make it your own way, VN is for you.

Let’s dive in to get through the nitty-gritty of how to create a reel with all these apps.

How To Make A Reel On Instagram With Photos?

Creating a reel on Instagram with photos is a simple process that can add a dynamic and visually appealing element to your Instagram profile. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do it.

Option 1: Open the Instagram App – Swipe Right – Go to the reels section at the bottom – Start recording the Reel immediately, or select photos from the gallery to add them.   

Here is how:

Option 2: Alternatively, go to the ‘My Story’ option at the top left corner of the home page –  select ‘Create’ to create a reel. You can create a reel from your existing story, add photos to create a new reel, or start recording a reel immediately.

Here is how:

You have chosen your method for creating the Reel, you can set the duration of the video. To do this, tap on the encircled ’15’ on the left side of the screen and set the duration to 15, 30, 60, or 90 seconds.  

Next, to make a reel smaller than 15 seconds, click on the ‘clock’ option and use the slider to adjust the length.

You can also set the timer to  3 or 10 seconds on the screen’s right side. The countdown to start recording a reel begins after you press record.

You can also customise the speed, effects, gestures, and layout of your Reel. To do this, choose the desired options from the left side of the screen and add them to your Reel until it meets your desired level.

Now, it’s time to add pictures to your Reel.

To add photos to your Reel – click on the ‘+’ sign at the bottom left of the screen – and select up to 10 photos. You can add music, edit the duration of each image, and preview the Reel before posting it.

If you want to include a specific part of a song in your Reel, you can edit the song and choose the desired portion to add.

You can also add text to your Reel while customising the font, colour, and animation. If you want the text to be visible for only a short duration, tap on the text and drag the slider on the bottom to the desired point.

When satisfied with your Reel, you can post it to your Instagram profile for your followers to enjoy. Before you hit the ‘share’ button, add hashtags, a caption, and set a cover image!

How To Make A Reel On Instagram With Photos with Canva and VN

While Instagram allows you to make and share a reel, it has several limitations that prevent you from making cool and trendy reels that get viral.

Instagram often lags and crashes and does not have motion graphics or beautiful layouts to let you stay trend-savvy for specific trends like 3D photo challenge, 27 photos challenge and more. Besides, you can also not control your animated text duration and add transitions.

An alternative to Instagram is using the design tools – Canva or VN to create a reel with photos, which provides access to customisable templates, graphics, tools and more that give you complete control over your Reel.

Make a Reel With Photos On Canva

Canva makes making reels with photos easier with its pre-built templates easy to edit. Here’s how to customise Canva Reels templates and create your Reel quickly, accessing thousands of elements, fonts, animation options, trendy songs, effects, and more.

In the Canva editor, search for ‘Instagram Reels’ and choose a template.

Click on the three ‘horizontal dots’ tap on ‘Resize’ and customise the size.

From the ‘category’ section, choose the category of your template. You can choose from thousands of reel templates for your business needs, marketing, education, and even food recipes.

After choosing the template, you can add your favourite photos.

Using the drag arrow ‘>’ at the bottom, stretch the template to make it lengthy. You can also use the ‘+’ sign or ‘Add’ option at the bottom to add a new space to the Reel.

You can adjust the slider, can cut the template into as many small halves as you want, and get to add as many pictures as you want (but remember the upper limit is 90 seconds).

Now it’s time to get creative and add pictures. Click on the ‘+’ sign encircled in purple on the left side of your screen to upload photos from the gallery, drive, or other applications. 

Another way to replace the pictures of the template with yours is to click on the picture you want to replace, click on the ‘Replace’ option at the bottom left, and add your photos. Repeat this method to add every image to the Reel.

You can add elements from the same section, including graphs, gifs, tables, and more; add text, and choose the font you want.

Now, click on ‘Elements’, search ‘audio’ and tap on ‘Audio’ just below the search bar. You can browse different audios for different moods and find the one that resonates with your Reel.

When you add the audio, it appears at the bottom in the purple line. Double-click on it to adjust the starting point of the music.

To get more creative, click the ‘+’ sign between the sections to add transitions. You can apply the same transition to all or choose a unique one for every slide.

Once you’ve finished and you’re ready to export your Reel, preview it, edit it more if you want, and download by clicking on the  ‘Download arrow’ and then the purple ‘Download’ button. This exports your video in the correct format, aspect ratio and resolution for you to upload it on Instagram.

Make Instagram Reels With Photos And Videos On VN

VN is one of the best video editing and reel-making apps for Apple users, Androids, and desktops. It is a cross-device, cross-platform compatible software.

Now, to make an Instagram Reel on VN, there are two ways. You can start from scratch or use their templates.

To use their templates, click on the ‘+’ sign in the bottom right corner and go to the ‘templates’ section.

You can directly choose a template from the ‘Instagram reel’ section (but that will not have too many options). Or you can search for the type of template you want in the search option and access hundreds of templates in that category.

Choose a template, ‘ Download’ the one you want to customise, and click on ‘Use Template’.

To make a Reel using a template, replace their picture with your photos or videos.

Edit the content and add your own, preview the Reel, and save it in the VN app or download it by hitting the ‘download arrow’ given at the top right corner.

Alternatively, to make a reel from scratch, click on the ‘Default’ option and click on the ‘+’ sign in the bottom right corner.

Now add the media – amazingly, you can make a reel that allows you to display everything – because you can use up to 70 media from your gallery. You can use videos and photos alone or a combination of them.

After selecting the images and videos, you can add music, and text, insert stickers and even add a video to a picture or vice versa.

Now, a reel is ready to post already! But you can get as creative as you want to with your Reel. Because VN has got various editing options, hundreds of filters, fonts, music options, and much more to enrich your Reel.

Bottom Line?

In summary, creating a reel on Instagram with photos is a powerful way to showcase your content and stand out on the platform. The Instagram app allows for the easy creation and editing of reels with platform’s built-in features. However, for those looking for more advanced customisation options and design elements, using a design tool such as Canva or VN can elevate your Reel to the next level.

With Canva, you have access to a plethora of pre-built templates, graphics, animations and other design elements that can help you create a truly unique and professional Reel. With VN, making reels from scratch and having complete control over your Reel and its design is easier.

No matter what route you choose, taking the time to create a visually stunning reel with photos can help your content reach a wider audience and make a lasting impression

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