Layouts and safe zones
All twelve layout modes, the Universal Safe Zone with its opacity and color controls, the caption editor, and when the picture fills versus letterboxes.
A layout draws social-platform chrome over the live picture, so you can see whether a title, a face, or a lower third survives the interface that will sit on top of it. Open the picker with the grid button in the HUD.
Layouts work identically in the live view and in Preview from Photos or Files, and they are baked into anything you save to Photos.
The twelve modes
| Layout | Tier | What it draws |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | Free | Nothing. Full-bounds picture, letterbox-fit. |
| Full Screen | Free | Nothing. Picture scaled to cover the whole screen, overflow cropped. |
| TikTok LTR | Pro | TikTok chrome with the action rail on the right. |
| TikTok RTL | Pro | Mirrored — rail on the left. |
| TikTok LTR + RTL | Pro | Both rails at once. |
| Reels LTR | Pro | Instagram Reels chrome, rail on the right. |
| Reels RTL | Pro | Mirrored — rail on the left. |
| Reels LTR + RTL | Pro | Both rails at once. |
| Shorts LTR | Free | YouTube Shorts chrome, rail on the right. |
| Shorts RTL | Free | Mirrored — rail on the left. |
| Shorts LTR + RTL | Free | Both rails at once. |
| Universal Safe Zone | Free | A single full-frame guide covering all three platforms' margins. |
Every TikTok and Reels variant is Pro. They stay listed and tappable on the free tier — tapping one opens the upgrade options rather than doing nothing. Standard, Full Screen, all three Shorts variants, and the Universal Safe Zone are free. If a Pro layout is active when a subscription lapses, it is reset to Standard.
The RTL variants exist for right-to-left languages, where the action rail sits on the opposite edge. Both shows the two rails simultaneously and centers the caption so it clears them — useful when you are cutting one master for both markets.
Each RTL twin is generated from its LTR definition rather than authored separately, so the vertical positions, gaps, and video rectangle are identical on both sides.
The picker
The card drops directly under the grid button. Standard and Full Screen are plain rows; the other four entries are accordions, and only one is open at a time.
Tapping a platform header selects its LTR (default) variant and expands the group to show all three:
- LTR (default)
- RTL
- Both
On the free tier the whole TikTok group is dimmed and carries a lock. It still expands, so you can see what is on offer.
Selecting a locked platform header does not change the active layout — only expands the group.
Universal Safe Zone
The Universal Safe Zone is one full-frame guide, symmetric so it serves LTR and RTL alike, laid over the picture at its true edges. Nothing is cropped: the layout forces letterbox-fit precisely so the guide lines register with the real frame boundary.
Expanding its row reveals two controls.
Opacity
A 0–100% slider, default 30%, with the current value shown as a number.
The default position has a magnetic detent: a small tick is drawn on the track at 30%, and while the thumb is inside a ±5% catch band the value is pinned to exactly 30% and a light haptic fires once. You have to drag past the band to break free. This makes "back to the default" a gesture rather than a number you have to hit.
Color
Five swatches: red, black, white, green, blue. The guide artwork is a single-color shape, so it recolors cleanly. The active swatch carries an accent ring.
Safe-zone color and opacity are Pro. On the free tier the guide is pinned to red at 30%: the slider is inert and the four non-red swatches carry a lock. Both controls stay visible and tapping either opens the upgrade options — the value is still legible, it just cannot be changed. If a subscription lapses, the color snaps back to red and the opacity to 30%.
The caption and profile editor
Every platform layout draws a creator caption over the picture — bold username, then description — using each network's real typeface: TikTok Sans for TikTok, Roboto for Shorts, and the system font for Reels, because Instagram uses the OS font.
The caption is a single shared identity used by all three platforms. Edit it from Edit Profile & Caption at the bottom of the layout picker. That row only appears when the active layout actually draws a caption — the Universal Safe Zone has none, so there is nothing to edit.
The card swaps in place under the same grid button, so it reads as drilling into the layout you just picked.
Fields
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Avatar | Tap the circle for Choose from Library, Choose from Files, and — once a photo is set — Remove photo. |
| Profile name | Drawn as the caption's username. |
| Caption | The description body. Line limit is 5 lines. |
| Likes, Comments, Saves, Shares, Reposts | Free text, so 5.2M and 1,672 both work. |
There is no Done button. Every field writes through live and persists — dismiss by tapping outside the card or toggling the grid button. Reset to defaults restores the shipped name, caption, counts, and the bundled avatar in one press.
Cropping the photo
Picking a photo opens a full-screen circular cropper titled Move and Scale. Pinch and drag inside the circle; the image can be zoomed out only until it just fills the circle, so there is never a gap. Use Photo commits, Cancel discards. The result is downscaled to at most 512 px on its long edge before it is stored.
Where the photo lands depends on the layout. Reels and Shorts draw an avatar circle beside the username in the caption. TikTok's caption shows only the username — its avatar lives in the action rail, so the photo is drawn there instead, with the pink + follow badge redrawn on top so the badge is never covered.
Which counts each platform shows
The five counts are global, but each layout has icons for only some of them:
| Layout | Counts drawn |
|---|---|
| TikTok | Likes, Comments, Saves, Shares |
| Reels | Likes, Comments, Reposts, Shares |
| Shorts | Likes, Comments, Reposts |
Shorts' dislike and share icons are text labels with no count, so nothing is drawn under them.
Defaults: Likes 5.2M, Comments 47.8K, Saves 271.5K, Shares 825.3K, Reposts 92.7K.
When the picture fills and when it letterboxes
This is the rule that decides whether you are seeing your whole frame or a crop of it.
| Layout | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Standard | Always letterbox-fit. The entire source frame stays visible. |
| Universal Safe Zone | Always letterbox-fit — the guides have to register with the real frame edges. |
| Full Screen | Always aspect-fill, whatever the source. A 16:9 program feed scales up until it spans the portrait screen and the left and right edges run off. |
| TikTok / Reels / Shorts | Depends on the source aspect. |
For the three platform layouts the cutoff is 9:16, matching TikTok's native upload aspect:
- A source at 9:16 or taller (portrait phone video, vertical masters) fills the video rectangle, cropping whichever axis overflows.
- A source wider than 9:16 (square, 4:5, 16:9) letterboxes with bars top and bottom.
That is exactly how a landscape clip reads inside a real portrait feed, which is the point — you are checking how your cut will actually look there.
Notice the picture stops above the mock tab bar rather than running behind it — the platform layouts reserve the bottom strip for chrome.
The safe zone keeps the whole frame visible, which is why its guide can be trusted against the true edges.
Landscape
Rotating the phone to landscape suppresses every layout: the overlay is dropped, the Layout button disappears from the HUD, and the picture goes back to a plain full-bounds render. The layout artwork is authored for a portrait phone and would sit wrong rotated.
Your selection is remembered and comes straight back in portrait.
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