It took me long enough, but I finally opened an Instagram account! I considered doing this a while ago, but opted against it because it seemed to me that Instagram wasn't designed for serious photography. When I first looked at Instagram, I couldn't figure out how to upload anything other than pictures from my phone--and it does appear that the vast majority of Instagram pictures come from mobile devices.
As always, Google is my friend. It didn't take long to discover how to upload my digital files to Instagram. At this point, it's a little cumbersome--but manageable. The images on Instagram always appear in a square format. So, if my picture isn't square (and most of them aren't), I first open it in Photoshop. I add to the "canvas size" usually using a white background. I then crop the image to be square--which leaves a white background around the picture. Since Instagram uses a white background, the image then appears in the original dimension.
Here's an example of one with the extended white canvas to make the square crop:
In order to get my image into Instagram, I email the picture to myself. When I open the email on my iPhone, I save the photo. From there, it's just a matter of opening the Instagram application and selecting a photo that I previously saved on my phone. Since I've already processed the photograph to my liking within Photoshop, I don't use any of the filters that Instagram offers.
My hope is that Instagram will open a wider audience for my images. Part of the enjoyment of creating photographs is in sharing them. So, if you are an Instagram user, please consider "following" nagel_photography!