Performing basic photo editing tasks has always been easy on the iPhone, and this includes combining your photos. As it turns out, there are actually multiple ways to combine photos on an iPhone.

Below, we'll show you some of the ways to put two pictures together on your iPhone or iPad.

How to Combine Photos on an iPhone Using Layout

One of the best ways to put photos side-by-side on an iPhone is by using the free Layout app, which is one of the best photo collage apps because the user interface is clean, simple, and easy to use. Layout comes from the developers of Instagram and provides various ways to combine photos on your iPhone.

Download: Layout (Free)

How to Use Layout to Put Two Pictures Together on Your iPhone

After you install Layout from the App Store, follow these simple steps to combine your photos:

  1. On the app's main screen, tap the photos you'd like to combine into a single image.
  2. As soon as you start tapping photos, Layout displays various compositions at the top. Select the layout you prefer: side-by-side or top-and-bottom.
  3. Your selected layout will open in full-screen mode. If you want, use the tools given at the bottom of your screen to edit your photo. You can mirror or flip the image and add a white border between the pictures.
  4. Tap on Save in the top-right corner to save your combined photo. Layout saves your photo to the Photos app.
  5. Tap on Done to close the editing mode in Layout.

How to Combine Photos Using Shortcuts on an iPhone

The first method, Layout, combines the two photos on your iPhone to create a nice, simple collage. The process inevitably crops your images, but it's useful if you want to spotlight the subject in your photos.

But what if you want to put two pictures together on your iPhone without cropping them? For example, you may want to combine two portrait pictures to form a photo strip, stack a couple of landscape images, or stitch screenshots side-by-side on your iPhone. To do so, you can use an iPhone shortcut via the Shortcuts app.

Shortcuts is a free app owned by Apple. With handy iPhone shortcuts to automate everyday tasks, you don't need to download a dozen other separate apps to carry out different functions on your iPhone.

Plus, once you create this shortcut, you'll be able to put two pictures side by side on your iPhone without a third-party app in the future. You just need to activate the shortcut to combine your photos.

Shortcuts comes pre-installed on the iPhone, but if you can't find the app for some reason, feel free to download it from the App Store.

Download: Shortcuts (Free)

How to Create a Shortcut to Combine Photos on an iPhone

For a shortcut to combine two photos on your iPhone, it needs to have three actions. It needs to select images from your Photos app, put the two pictures together, then save the merged photo to your preferred album.

Once you've installed the Shortcuts app on your device, follow these instructions carefully to set up a shortcut that combines two photos on your iPhone:

  1. Launch the Shortcuts app. On the app's main screen (the Shortcuts tab), tap the plus (+) icon to add a new shortcut.
  2. The default name of the shortcut is New Shortcut, shown at the top of the screen. Tap on it, choose Rename, and use a descriptive phrase, like Combine Photos, so you don't lose track of it in the future. Tap Done to save.
  3. Tap Add Action. Search for Select Photos and tap to add as the first shortcut action.
  4. Once it's added, tap the arrow next to Select Photos. Toggle on Select Multiple.
  5. Search for the next action: Combine Images. Again, tap that option in the results to add it to your shortcut.
  6. The default action shown is Combine Photos Horizontally. This puts your two pictures together, side by side. Tap Horizontally and change it to Vertically if you want one photo at the top and another at the bottom.
  7. If you want space between your combined photos, tap the arrow next to Horizontally for more options. Tap 0 and key in your preferred spacing size. The greater the number, the larger the spacing. Tap Done to save.
  8. Now, search for the third action: Save to Photo Album. By default, this action will save your combined photo in the Recents album of your Photos app. If you prefer another album, tap on Recents and choose from the list.
  9. Tap Done to save your shortcut.

How to Use Your iPhone Shortcut to Combine Photos

After making the shortcut above, here's how to use it to put two pictures together on your iPhone:

  1. Launch the Shortcuts app. Tap on your Combine Photos shortcut.
  2. The shortcut will automatically open your photo album. Now, select the photos you want to combine and tap Add.
  3. Wait for a few seconds to let the shortcut run through its process. Once you see a checkmark, know that the shortcut has successfully combined the two photos on your iPhone.
  4. Go back to Photos to find your combined image.

As an additional tip, if you're ready to combine photos but noticed that all your pictures are rotated the wrong way, you can fix the mistake with an iPhone shortcut that lets you bulk rotate photos on your iPhone—this is a feature you can't find on any photo-editing app so far.

If you intend to combine photos for someone to peruse them conveniently, you can consider combining multiple images into a PDF on your iPhone before sending out the file.

Put Photos Side-by-Side With Ease on an iPhone

As you can see, there's no need to learn complex photo-editing skills when you want to combine photos on an iPhone. Even if you need to combine more than two photos next time, you can apply the same steps to have all your selected photos easily merged into one.

With the two easy-to-use methods shown above, you can quickly and conveniently put two pictures together on your iPhone. Combining photos before editing helps ensure that the edits you apply will be identical for both pictures, too!