Even more ways to style your pictures, Layout from Instagram launched

Social media imaging service Instagram has brought out another way to style your pics, with custom layouts all the easier and collages a piece of cake with its new app.

Only available on iOS at the moment – once again us Androiders miss out – the new app basically automatically creates layouts of multiple images, reacting as you choose photos from your camera roll.

“From there,” explains the company, “you have complete artistic control.” You drag around images, drop them into place, crop them, zoom in, zoom out, all helping you get a montage that pleases.

There’s a ‘Photo Booth’ service, too, that allows you start a countdown and take photos that immediately log into your layouts – not needing to dive in and out of your stored pics.

It makes a fair bit of sense, considering the amount of time people pine over their photos. An attractive, new way to present them will probably be very popular.

Also, you can obviously share your images between your Instagram and Facebook accounts, save them on the camera roll of the iPhone or even share them onto apps like Dropbox or Snapchat.

There are now more ways to play with your images on Layout from Instagram

According to Instagram, one in five users already stitch photos together with some application of the sort, so it’s only natural that it gets in on the act.

 “From imagining mirrored landscapes to sharing multiple moments from an entire adventure, we’ve seen these kinds of visual storytelling happening on Instagram and we’re inspired by it,” says the company. “With Layout, it’s easier than ever to unlock your creativity — and we can’t wait to see what you’ll make next.”

Interestingly, there’s already an app called Layout available, and it seems to do some of the things Instagram can now do. I wonder what will come of that, now.

It’s about half a year since Instagram’s last major technological announcement, when it brought out Hyperlapse to allow users create time-lapse videos from their mobile device. That was pretty cool. In December it brought out even more filters, which was always going to be popular, but never going to be revolutionary.

The app is here.

^{A sampling of the Instagram Layout app}