Featured image size different than what I upload!

Megan,

From my personal experience, images uploaded as featured images will have a copy made that’s resized to the exact size of the featured image space within the theme. This is normal behavior.

If you want to use the image for more than just the featured slot, upload it like you would a normal image, close the upload window, then choose your featured image from the gallery.

Let me know if this clears up the confusion.

Hi Jonathan,

Thank you for your response.

So I tested out what you were saying and it didn’t change anything. boo.
But I guess I left out why this is such an issue for me,

WordPress is reducing the file to that 847 wide, making it unclear. If it was resizing it to the exact specs of the featured slot and it remained still a clear picture, I wouldn’t care.

Also, why would all of a sudden this happen? Seems like in the last month or so it’s really become a problem. Featured images I uploaded months ago are output at the image I uploaded, its only recent ones where it magically gets changed to this new 847 size gets added.

Megan,

If you could provide a link to a post or page where this is happening, that’d be great.

An image being resized to an odd dimension can be caused by a plugin or by odd dimension settings in Settings > Media.

Also, here’s a couple other things worth considering:

Try deactivating all plugins. If that resolves the issue, reactivate each one individually until you find the cause.

If that does not resolve the issue, try switching to the default theme for your version of WordPress to rule-out a theme-specific issue (theme functions can interfere like plugins).

After you make any of the changes above, you’ll want to regenerate your thumbnails/featured images. There isn’t a standard tool for this but there is a plugin that will do the job.

Please let me know if you find success.

Hi Johnathan,
Here’s a link to a post where it’s happening:
https://www.apexautosports.com/2000/testing-it/
I changed the date to really old so it doesn’t show up in my recent blog while we look at it.

I have tested out turning the plugins off to see if it changed anything and unfortunately it doesn’t. I even switched to the twenty fourteen theme or which ever is current and tested a new post and it still does it. Getting really frustrated.

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This is what the theme support guy just said to me if you care lol:

It’s wordpress that resize and generates sizes based on registered sizes by add_image_size(). X dynamically compute your image sizes based on your layout size (and it’s uses the max size). For example, if your inside layout size 980px, then X will deduct spaces, and etc. from it and the resulting value will be registered as your image size. So your resulting image size will be like 800px or so.

Now that it’s registered, wordpress will generate images according to that. You may ask why layout size? and why 800px? It’s because in responsive layout, the columns and sidebars tend to collapse and becomes one column so it’s best if your image can maintain quality on both columnized and full width layout. And 800px is not that big, it’s almost same size as tablets and mobiles. If your 800px is still too big, then compression while maintaining quality is a must. Pixel size is still different from image file size, it is image file size that contribute bigger to loading performance.

Please note that regenerate your images every time you change your layout, or there are new added image size. You should install Force regenerate thumbnails plugin and use it. add_image_size() will not resize your existing images.

X registered the size in the name of entry, entry-cropped, entry-fullwidth, entry-cropped-fullwidth. And by checking your site, it’s correctly picking the registered size entry-cropped. But the actual generated image isn’t being picked. Thus, image regeneration is required.

<img width=”709″ height=”473″ src=”https://www.apexautosports.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/IMG_26951.jpg&#8221; class=”attachment-entry-cropped wp-post-image” alt=”IMG_2695″>
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So I’m gathering from what he said that it’s picking the correct image file that should be 847wide but displaying the picture that’s 709 wide?

Thanks for your help Johnathan!

Hi Megan,

First, here’s exactly what I see in Safari:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/av63u9zmjeb0oqu/Screenshot%202015-02-26%2004.44.39.png?dl=0

Second, in the two column view, the featured image is actually an explicitly resized version of the original you show lower down the page. Here’s the link to it:

https://www.apexautosports.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/IMG_269511-847×565.jpg

Third, the theme’s layout is responsive, so the image will be scaled down as the window gets smaller. In full view on a browser where you have two columns, the image is only 774px wide. The theme chooses 847px because (and you’ll see this if you shrink the width of your browser window), the layout will change to accommodate a tablet device and make the layout a single column, requiring an 847px wide image. Conveniently, it uses the exact same image and it fits like a glove.

On my screen, I can’t discern much of a difference between the featured image that’s been resized to 847px wide and then shrunk down into a 774px wide area and the 1024px wide image farther down the page that’s been shrunk into a 714px area. It looks to me as if the theme and WordPress is doing it’s job.

Did you run the thumbnail regeneration plugin? If so, what would have happened is it would have taken the originals, made new resizes of them based on the theme’s requirements, and replaced the old ones that might not have been the right size.

Sorry I couldn’t give you a more definite answer, it looks okay on my end.

Sorry I was out of town Jonathan!

Ok so I did run the regeneration plugin and nothing changed, I clear my caches on all my browsers and cleared out the wordpress caching plugin I have and then deactivated. Still no different.

And really aside from this I’m still unsure of why this isn’t an issue on some posts, but an issue on others.

I am wondering if it cold have something to do with my retina macbook? I was on our mac desktop (non retina) and the image looked fine. But same page on my macbook and that featured image isn’t super clear.