The “featured image” is unclear on the home page.

Hello @ionici !

Hope you’re having a good day!

From what I’ve noticed, the site is currently using the Shortpixel CDN to deliver the images and it’s probably also resizing them on the fly to match the container size, hence why the image quality may be a bit lower. On the other site you’ve shared the images on the home page are served much larger than they are displayed, and the browser does the resizing.

Shortpixel CDN is probably part of one of the other optimisation plugins you’ve installed.

Kind regards,
Pawel

So do you think this Shortpixel CDN should be disabled and then check to see if the existing or future images will be of better quality? But I don’t know where it can be found if it can be deactivated.
Thanks!

Hello @ionici !

Yes, exactly!

Here’s an article on the integration between Shortpixel and Autooptimise: https://help.shortpixel.com/article/93-i-want-to-start-using-autoptimize-with-shortpixel-image-optimization-cdn

Kind regards,
Pawel

I have disabled “Shortpixel CDN” https://i.imgur.com/2sMtYZS.png, I uploaded a new image to an article and “smushed” the images again. But the problem was not solved. I don’t know what’s going on. I will try to get in touch again with the theme developer.
Thanks!

Hi @ionici,

It seems that your theme is using a thumbnail that is slightly smaller than the element that is holding the image.
Your images are 185×278 thumbnails while the HTML holder is 198×298, what this means is that your images are stretched in order to fill the holder and with that it will loose on quality.

JAVGG on the other hand uses 380×535 thumbnails on 167×234 HTML holder and when larger image is scaled to fit in smaller holder it will not loose quality as it happens when it’s other way around.

I would suggest that you check with your theme devs to set your homepage images to use thumbnail that is at least 198×298 and that should solve the issue.

Cheers,
Predrag

Ok. I usually add images as a “feature image” at resolutions of approximately 380 x 538 pixels https://i.imgur.com/6XAunzA.png after cropping the original 800 x 536 image to be a vertical image. Even if I don’t cut anything, it’s not clear. Do you also think I should change the WordPress “Settings – Media” here a bit? https://i.imgur.com/9j24ruR.png
Thank you for your help. I hope to solve the problem after several changes.

HI @ionici

The size of the image that you upload is one thing and the size of the image that theme is “choosing” to load is a different thing.

When you upload an image to the site, WordPress is automatically creating multiple additional images out of it, in different sized. Those are e.g. “thumbnail”, “medium”, “large” images and, often, multiple other sizes as plugins and theme can also register their own.

Theme developers can decide which of the sizes to fetch to display as features images so even if you add 1500×1500 image but the thumbnail is set to 200×200 and theme is using “thumbnail” size – that 200×200 image will be loaded and displayed.

Now, if that size is smaller than the actual size of the image on the screen (e.g. it’s “holder” element is bigger), the image will be sized-up and that always degrades quality.

Plugins can’t improve that, I’m afraid, so that would have to be fixed in different way.

One of them would be to create a child-theme and make adjustments to its code so it would fetch e.g. “medium” size images instead of “thumbnails”.

But it may be simpler, indeed, to just change the “Thumbnail” size in “Settings -> media” to bigger. I would go for something around 250×250 or 300×300 pixels.

However, after doing this you will need to regenerate thumbnails as changing that size will only affect images uploaded after the change. You can regenerate thumbnails e.g. using this plugin:

https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/regenerate-thumbnails/

Please note: it’s highly recommended to take a full backup of the site before running such operation.

Best regards,
Adam

Hi @ionici,

Since we haven’t heard from you for a while. I’ll mark this thread as resolved for now. Please feel free to re-open the thread if you need further assistance.

Best Regards
Nithin

Hello,

Can I still ask something about this issue? First of all, the problem is not solved. I saw that the new plugin update came with some new optimization features. Is it possible that this news will help me to make the images on the site clearer and no longer blurred? maybe not, but it’s just a question, and if you can give me an answer if yes or no.

As you can see from the texts above, my theme from the site automatically resizes the cover images to a small resolution of 185 x 278 px and this is not good at all. No matter how I add them on the site, cut or not, or in several formats, they will still be resized automatically. The theme developer is not yet prepared for certain theme changes, and until then I will have to keep trying to find solutions.
https://i.imgur.com/vlNslm6.png

So, in your opinion, the only option will be for the theme developer to make a change in the theme code and set the images to a higher resolution?

Thank you!

Hello @ionici

I’m afraid that Smush Free cannot help with this case and it is indeed a theme issue that should be resolved there. You can even hire a developer to try to fix this within a child theme instead.

Thank you,
Dimitris