POST IMAGES: Sharpness

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  jmnartsy · Member · Apr 16, 2012 at 1:02 am

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  My theme is Fresh and Clean, which I think is fabulous.
  The full image size in the post is 580px. That’s okay.

  Sharpness is not the best for all images.
  I upload 800px images which generally are around the 100-130Kb size, sometimes just a fraction smaller.

  I’ve noticed that my small 320px cellphone images look very sharp, whereas these 580px, WordPress-automatically-resized from my 800px images, usually look a little like pudding, meaning ‘soft’ rather than out of focus, even ‘tho the original was very sharp. Here’s an image as an example: http://jmnpixels.com/2012/04/12/jigsaw/.

  Is there a trick I can use to make sure these 580px photos look as sharp as they actually are? Thanks.

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

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  jmnartsy · Member · Apr 16, 2012 at 1:05 am

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  This question relates to my jmnpixels.com blog.

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  absurdoldbird · Member · Apr 16, 2012 at 1:22 am

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  It’s always best to resize images before putting them in either your media library or your blog. The image-resizer here makes them go blurry otherwise. So, for instance, if the max size your blog will take is 580px, then you should resize your images to 580px or less.

  Have a look at this:

  https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/pale-pictures?replies=11#post-258262

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  absurdoldbird · Member · Apr 16, 2012 at 1:24 am

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  and at the link further down that thread, which I’ll give here too:

  http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2008/05/03/how-good-is-wordpress-at-resizing-and-resampling-your-images/

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  jmnartsy · Member · Apr 16, 2012 at 1:54 am

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  Thanks, absurdoldbird, for your suggestion. However, I shouldn’t have to do that.

  A good blogging platform such as WordPress, whereon images are most important, ought to have a resizing software in place that keeps images sharp when downscaling. Others do it without a problem, from my experience. I’d like to see that happen, if your suggestion is the solution.

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  absurdoldbird · Member · Apr 16, 2012 at 2:09 am

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  Yes, it should. I quite agree. But it doesn’t.

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  justpi · Member · Apr 16, 2012 at 2:32 am

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  The fact is that WP compresses the files you upload, and downsized versions of the images you upload lose some color and sharpness. See here as well:
  http://wpbtips.wordpress.com/2010/01/16/image-quality/

  So for best quality on the post you should do as AOB says: use an image editing application to downsize copies of your images to a width that doesn’t exceed the maximum for the theme you’re using, and upload and insert those copies. If you don’t like that width, switch to a theme with a wider main column.