WordPress Image Sizes Explained (A Must Read Guide)

Images really matter when it comes to the WordPress platform. Once you upload an image, WordPress does plenty of work to serve the best image to your visitors.

“By default WordPress supports several image sizes for your website.”

The images and designs on your website can have a huge impact on a website. In case, if you got the wrong image size, then you could end up misplaced, or slow loading images that may badly affect your website speed. True! That is the reason you ought to understand the default WordPress image sizes and how to modify them.

Here, in this article, we have explained the different WordPress image sizes. We have also illustrated how to optimize and effectively manage your image files. Let’s get started, without any hurdle.

1. How Does the WordPress Platform Process Images?

There are two ways to insert an image into a post or page. The first one is using the Media Uploader, and the second one is using a featured image. You can allow featured images by inserting the code into your theme’s functions.php file.

When you upload an image on the media library, WordPress will create additional three images with three different sizes and store them separately. After that, you can see the four options for an image whenever you upload them on your website. The four different options are thumbnail, medium, large as well as full-size options. In addition to this, the first three image options are the default WordPress image sizes, whilst the fourth one is the original image size that you upload to the media library.

“Luckily, the way WordPress regulates images makes things a lot more comfortable.”

Generally, WordPress generates these different options because sometimes, it requires different image sizes in different locations. For instance, the image resolution used in the slider may be different as compared to the image resolution in a blog post. WordPress does this automatically, so you do not have to keep resizing images manually and to make sure the most suitable image size is selected for distinct locations on your website.

2. Different WordPress Image Sizes

WordPress comes with three default image sizes such as,

• Thumbnail: (150p x 150 pixels like a square)
• Medium size: (maximum 300 (width) x 300 pixels (height))
• Large size: (maximum 1024 x 1024 pixels )
• Full size: (the original image size that you upload)

3. Change Default WordPress Image Size

As we had discussed above, WordPress already gives you three default image sizes. If you decide that these choices do not fulfill your requirements, then there is an alternative as well.

You can upload your custom image sizes to fit your needs. Therefore, you need to change the default WordPress image sizes for your website.
Here’s how:
1. Go to your WordPress Admin Panel.
2. Click on Setting -> Media.
3. In the Media Settings window, you can modify the default image pixels to fit your preference.
4. Click on the Save Changes button to save the image settings.

4. Featured or Hero Image Sizes

A hero image is used to describe the banner image at the top of a website. It is also called a hero header. Moreover, it serves as a visitor’s first glimpse of your business and offering because of its central placement towards the top of a web page.

Furthermore, a hero image is a high-quality photo or video, which can be a good way to add a personal touch that instantly creates credibility and faith in your brand. Having a high quality and fullscreen imagery at the top of your web page can help you build a positive impression.

You have to use a little higher resolution and larger dimensions for the featured image. The perfect WordPress featured image size is 1200 x 628 pixels, and these sizes normally meet most WordPress blog themes.

Different blogs and themes may have featured images of different sizes. WordPress will usually decrease the image sizes. It relies on the default image sizes set in your WordPress blog theme. But, it is more pleasing to downsize a little compared to upsize. Images that have been blown up to meet certain sizes look unprofessional.

5. Preciously Naming And Tagging Image Files

If you are not naming your files or adding tags to your images, then you are throwing the opportunities to get more traffic on your website. Adding proper names and tags to the images is the most important task.

In the WordPress media section, when you click on the image, you will get the following options,

• Alternative Text
• Title
• Caption
• Description
• File URL

For an image, the Title and Alternative Text field is the most important criteria. In addition to this, the Alternative Text needs to be illustrative and not stuffed with keywords. It may include your target keywords if it is suitable to have them. You can easily edit the Alternative Text of an image file directly in the WordPress post editor.

Here are the important points you need to know about:

• Filenames should be short and straightforward and must reflect the content of the image.
• You can use dashes ( – ) rather than underscores ( _ ).
• If the image is of a Free Shipping, name the file Free-Shipping.jpg.

6. Best Image Sizes For WordPress

It is always essential to know the best image size to ensure the image looks great and responsive on a desktop, smartphone, and tablet.

• Logo image size (250 x 100 pixels)
• Header image size for banner size (1048 x 250 pixels)
• Thumbnail image size (150 x 150 pixels)
• Featured image size (Landscape 1200 x 900 pixels)
• Featured image size (Portrait 900 x 1200 pixels)
• Blog post image size (1200 x 630 pixels)
• WordPress background image size (1920 x 1080 pixels)

a. Optimize Image File Sizes
The most important aspect of uploading images to WordPress is to evaluate the size of each image file. Any image with an extensive file size will harm the speed of your WordPress website. And that eventually impacts user experience and can increase the bounce rate on your website.

Note: WordPress image sizes should not exist larger than 150kb except for a big photo.

b. Compress Image File
Website speed is important when it comes to the success of your website. Every image you insert to your website should have image compression applied. Compressing images before upload to the WordPress website provides additional performance without offering the quality of your image.

You can use the powerful online image compression tool that is TinyPNG. This tool helps you to compress images within the existing dimensions without losing the image quality. Compress every JPEG and PNG images that you upload to improve website performance.

7. WordPress Image Formats

Generally, WordPress accepts many different image formats. And, all image formats have their own benefits and drawbacks for file size and quality ratio.

• JPEG: The Joint Photographic Experts Group or JPEG is the standard image format for containing lossy and compared image data. It is commonly known to support approximately 16 million colors and is the smallest file size for photos. Using JPEG for your photos means the image will not only load faster, but it will also appear more vibrant.
• PNG: The Portable Network Graphic or PNG supports fewer colors than JPEG but permits image transparency with high quality. Moreover, it is becoming the default choice for website elements such as logos and graphics.
• GIF: The Graphics Interchange Format or GIF is dynamic which permits you to showcase details and motion that static photos can not. It also supports 256 colors as well as transparency. It can also be animated and the animation allows for a wonderful opportunity to highlight a key function or feature of your product or brand.

“Select JPEG for photos and PNG for graphics files on your website.”

Note: You want to select the proper image format that provides a great balance for both image quality and website load speed.

8. Manage Images With WPFileo Pro WordPress Plugin

There are tons of WordPress plugins available to manage the image files. But WPFileo Pro is an amazing WordPress media library plugin to smoothly manage WordPress media library files such as images, text, videos, and audios. With this plugin, you can easily create, edit, or remove an unlimited folder, subfolder, and easily organize everything you upload on your website.

Furthermore, this plugin comes with advanced features that make your default media library more accessible and efficient. In addition to this, the plugin manages the larger number of media library files in multiple categories without affecting the core feature of WordPress media. Importantly, this plugin supports a drag and drop interface to make it user-friendly for users.

Important Reading: How to Organize Your WordPress Media Library with WPFileo Pro?

Final Thought!

That is the end! We hope this article helps you to understand the WordPress image size and easily optimize and manage it for your website. Make sure you have to reduce the image size to less than 200 KB for an SEO and increase website load speed. Apart from this, be descriptive with the image file name and use dash than underscore. Also, give a proper title and alternative text to the image file. Use an effective WordPress plugin like WPFileo Pro.

Feel free to contact us if you need any help. We always provide the out of box web solutions to our customers.

All the best!

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