How to change background on instagram story with photo

Anyone who’s added a photo to an Instagram Story knows the app slides its own gradient underneath, based on the colors in the image. Sometimes that default choice is perfect—exactly what you’re looking for. But when it’s not, changing the background can be pretty tricky if you haven’t spent a lot of time poking around the various editing tools.

There are, in fact, three ways to change the background of an Instagram Story, and they’re easy to handle once you know the right buttons to press.

How to change the background color of an Instagram Story

Once you’ve opened up a Story draft, take a photo of anything or add a photo from your camera roll, whichever is easier and fits your aesthetic plans. It doesn’t matter what you do, as this image is simply a placeholder that will soon disappear. Just, uh, don’t use a photo of anything you wouldn’t want people to see—mistakes happen.

The only time this first photo won’t disappear is when you share someone else’s Story post that you were tagged in. Do that, and Instagram will keep it on top and visible after you change the background.

[Related: 8 creative ways to add flair to your Instagram stories]

With an image in place, iOS users should tap the three dots in the top right corner of the screen, then Draw. On Android, tap the draw icon (a squiggly line). Then, on either operating system, choose the pen tip icon (all the way to the left). Next, choose a color from the options at the bottom of the screen (swipe left to see more) or tap the eyedropper icon to choose a color from the image in your draft. Finally, press and hold anywhere on the screen for about two seconds to fill it with your solid selected color. Tap Done in the top right to lock it in.

To add a photo on top, tap the sticker icon (a squared smiley face) and scroll to find the camera roll sticker. On iOS this is a circular preview of your most recent photo overlaid with what looks like two mountains in a frame, and on Android it’s two rectangles with a plus sign. Tap this to open your camera roll, then select any image you want to drop it onto your background.

There’s a shortcut for iOS users too: Open your camera roll, copy the picture you want (share icon > Copy Photo), and go back to your Story draft. Your copied photo will appear for a few seconds in the bottom left and you can add it to your Story from there. If you don’t see it, you’ll have to use the sticker icon steps we just discussed.

How to create a translucent background

If you want to put a translucent tint over a photo, follow all the steps above, but choose the highlighter icon instead of the pen tip. Press and hold a second time to make the color more opaque, or press and hold a third time to turn it solid. You can still add a photo on top if you wish.

How to use a custom Instagram Story background

If you can get an image on your camera roll, you can make it a Story background. With your custom background saved among your selfies and screenshots, add it to your Story as you would any other photo. If necessary, use two fingers to shrink, expand, and rotate it as you see fit. Then tap the sticker icon and find the camera roll sticker (a preview of your most recent photo with two mountains in a frame on top). Tap that and choose any image you want.

How to create an Instagram Story background with the Create tool

Instagram offers a number of backgrounds and templates inside its Create tool, though you are limited to what the app has in its library. To check it out, start a Story draft and make sure your camera is on, as if you were going to snap a shot for your Story. Next, tap the Aa icon.

This will bring up a multi-colored field with some circular icons along the bottom that you can swipe through. Most of them have a few preset backgrounds for you. Tap the colored circle in the bottom right corner to cycle through them. Once you tap the big button in the center to lock it in, that colored circle may move to the top of the screen for any further adjustments you may wish to make. If it disappears, you’ve chosen one of the less flexible options and will have to tap the back button, then Discard to choose another background.

When you’re ready, tap the sticker icon, find the camera roll sticker, choose your photo, and let your creativity flow from there.

FACT: Instagram Stories have turned out to be one of our most favorite reasons for spending time on the social network.

What’s more, Instagram also constantly offers us new creative ideas to make posts more appealing.

Take Instagram Story Backgrounds, for example. More and more people are changing the background color of their Stories to ensure that they look original (and fun!)

Here’s everything you need to know about it and how to change the background of your Stories.

How to Be Creative With Instagram Stories 

If there’s one thing that can be said about Instagram is that the social media network offers so many ways to let one’s creativity go.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that you have to be a professional designer to create appealing stories. 

Quite the contrary, in fact. 

Instagram is offering a series of features that help you take your Stories to the next level with ease.

The four most common ones are:

• Stickers, 
• Instagram Live, 
• Collage, and
• Changing the Instagram background.

Stickers

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Instagram Stickers are simple graphic design elements that help you make your Stories more engaging. 

There are many different types of stickers to add to your Stories. Some of them are animated, others allow you to mention your friends, while you can even host a Q&A session with your followers.

Stickers are easy to use and once you start adding them to your Stories you can’t get enough of them.

Instagram Live

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Instagram Live is a very popular feature that allows you to connect with your friends in real-time. Many brands use it to stream important events, host interviews, or plan takeovers with influencers.

What makes Instagram Live engaging is the ability to put yourself out in the world without any additional filters and scheduling. Authenticity is very rewarding and it’s up to you to decide on the frequency of going live.

However, it is important to practice and get to grips with the technical aspects of going live. Find the best angle to hold your phone, think about what you want to say, and explore all the features that you want to use before going live.

The best thing about using Live? Users are notified when you are starting the live stream, which means that your brand can see an instant increase in engagement.

Collage

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Another way to stay creative on Instagram is to share a video collage on your Stories. Instagram collages became popular when influencers started sharing a series of photos all in a single Story.

Stories with collage looked incredibly creative and many users wanted to follow the trend. In response to this demand, Instagram introduced an easy way to create a collage through its Layout feature. All you have to do is add two or more photos on your Story and adjust them accordingly.

You can also create a collage on your own by playing around with the background and the way you want to display the photos. You can find out more about Instagram collage here.

Changing Your Background

Did you know that changing the background is one of the most commonly used stories feature on the social network?

Many Instagram features start with the step of changing your background. It can be a simple change of a solid color in a story. However, you can go much further than that.

Changing your Instagram Story background allows you to experiment with new creative ideas to boost your engagement. You don’t need to limit yourself to Stories that look the same. 

How to Change the Background on Your Instagram Story

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There are three different ways to change your background depending on the type of background you want to add to your Stories.

• Changing the default color to a different solid background
• Changing to a background that you’ve already downloaded on your phone
• Changing the background color and adding an image along with it

Changing to a Different Solid Colour

When you’re sharing a post, Instagram automatically picks the default color for you.

But you don’t need to stick to this color, though. 

You can change your Story by adding a choosing a different color option, a one that makes your content pop up even more.

Here are the instructions you need to follow.

• Open Stories
• Take a photo or video
• Click on the brush icon for highlighting
• Pick a color from the list of available options
• Tap your screen for a couple of seconds
• You’ll see the new background applied to your Story

TIP: Because of this change, the photo you initially added to the Story is no longer there. As a result, you must treat the Story with the new background as a blank canvas to add text.

Also, if you are sharing a post from your feed and want to adjust the background color to your post’s branding, you can simply use the color marker’ to pick the exact same color that is in your post.

Changing to a Different Background That You’ve Already Downloaded on Your Phone

What if you want to be more creative and don’t want to limit yourself to a simple color change? 

That’s where this option to use a photo that you’ve downloaded to your phone comes in. 

Here’s how to use it: 

Find the background image from free stock sites such as PikWizard, pexels.com, unsplash.com, or Pinterest, and download it to your phone.

This is what you’ll use as your background. 

Here’s what to do next:

• Open Stories
• Swipe up to see your Camera Roll
• Find the background that you want to use
• Add it to your Story

TIP: Your new backgrounds don’t have to come from free stock sites. You can create your own backgrounds with your design team to reflect your branding and make your stories immediately recognizable as coming from your brand. 

Changing the Background Color and Adding an Image to It

Your third option is to change the background color but also, add an image on top of it.

(A quick note: This option works in practically the same way as creating an Instagram collage.)

Here’s how it works:

• Open Stories
• Take a photo
• Click on the brush for highlighting
• Pick a color
• Tap your screen for a couple of seconds
• The new color should be applied to your background
• Go to your Photos
• Click to ‘Copy photo’ option for the one you want to use
• Now, go back to Stories and you should see a pop-up on the bottom left of your screen showing you the copied photo

If you miss the pop-up on your screen, go to the text function and select paste. The image will still show up.

Takeaway Tips on Changing your Instagram Story Background

Although it may seem like an insignificant feature, changing the Instagram Story background offers you new ways to make your stories pop.

Even a simple change of color can make your Stories more appealing to the audience. And, naturally, the engagement will go up even higher when you start creating custom backgrounds.

You can even be more creative by adding animated backgrounds to your next Instagram Stories.

Isn’t that amazing?

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