header very blurred

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  damennamen · Member · Jul 31, 2009 at 10:25 am

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  hello,

  maybe this was asked before but i couldn’t find a corresponding topic …

  however, i recognized that wordpress brutally compresses the headerpicture
  when uploaded. the text and the pictures become very blurry nearly unreadable.
  (see: http://damennamen.wordpress.com/)

  my question is now: is there a way to not let wordpress compress the
  picture or to get the headerpicture linked from my server (where i
  have all other blog pictures as well)?

  thank you and kind regards,
  martin

  The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

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  thesacredpath · Member · Jul 31, 2009 at 2:17 pm

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  Size the image to the exact dimensions required before uploading it, and also due to the nature of the stuff in the image, do NOT save it as a jpg. JPG compression uses anti-aliasing on text which makes it look fuzzy. Save either as gif or png – png would be preferred.

  See the following blog posts for more on image compression types and which to use for which type of image.

  http://onecoolsite.wordpress.com/2008/04/22/image-editing-and-preparation-tips-part-1/
  http://onecoolsite.wordpress.com/2008/04/28/image-editing-and-preparation-tips-part-2/

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  thesacredpath · Member · Jul 31, 2009 at 2:19 pm

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  And as a note, if you upload an image that is the correct size for the header space, wordpress does absolutely nothing with it. It is used just as you uploaded it. If you look at the same image in various browsers, you will find that some are more sharp than others, and that is because of the differences in how browsers render.

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  johnlvs2run · Member · Jul 31, 2009 at 2:40 pm

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  due to the nature of the stuff in the image, do NOT save it as a jpg. JPG compression uses anti-aliasing on text which makes it look fuzzy. Save either as gif or png - png would be preferred.

  Yikes, I’ve been uploading headers with jpg. Thanks for that notice!

  is there a way to not let wordpress compress the
  picture

  Instead of cropping, I often start with a panoramic image that is close, then just adjust the dimensions of the photo prior to uploading it to the theme. It’s amazing how the photos still look great with this adjustment. Unfortunately, the header size for each theme is different; it is best to have a semipermanent theme before uploading a header.

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  thesacredpath · Member · Jul 31, 2009 at 2:58 pm

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  @john, read those two posts I referenced. JPG is preferred for photographic images, but if it is a graphic image PNG or GIF is better.

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  johnlvs2run · Member · Jul 31, 2009 at 3:58 pm

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  Header = graphic image?

  Those are very helpful links.

  It looks like jpg is fine as long as I would have the exact size of the header.

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  thesacredpath · Member · Jul 31, 2009 at 4:22 pm

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  jpg is fine for photographic images. Not so fine for graphic images such as the one on the referenced site: http://damennamen.wordpress.com/ .

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  johnlvs2run · Member · Jul 31, 2009 at 9:22 pm

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  The jpg header was from a photographic image.

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  thesacredpath · Member · Jul 31, 2009 at 10:45 pm

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  Take a look at the OP’s site again and you will see that they have changed it to a gif or png and how much better it looks.