Why does my header take so long to download?

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  formerchef · Member · Mar 28, 2009 at 5:30 am

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  I’m using the Vigilence theme with a custom header. It’s a photo and it always seems to download last on the page. Is there any way to get it to download first or faster? Should I lower the resolution of the image?
  Thanks

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

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  raincoaster · Member · Mar 28, 2009 at 5:36 am

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  Headers always load last. You can optimize yours for the web by lowering the resolution if you find the lag time is too long, though. Looks like it’s pretty high-res and you’ve got some room to play with it before it shows up visually.

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  thesacredpath · Member · Mar 28, 2009 at 5:37 am

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  It does seem to load a little slowly. The image is only 50.6k in file size though, so it isn’t too large (I’ve seen header images that were over 300k).

  I don’t know that there is much you can do with it really.

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  thesacredpath · Member · Mar 28, 2009 at 5:37 am

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  Nice blog by the way. I’ll be visiting there on a regular basis to get dinner ideas.

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  formerchef · Member · Mar 28, 2009 at 6:13 am

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  Thanks. I worked so hard to get that header just the way I want it that I’m really bummed at how long it takes to download. It’s almost as if it’s because it was the first loaded onto the blog (by me) it’s the last one in line to come up.

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  formerchef · Member · Mar 28, 2009 at 6:32 am

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  Ok, here’s what I did and I think it helped. Let me know…
  1. I took the header image down from 260k to about 70k (not sure why the file you saw was 50k but the one on my computer was 260k)
  2. I fixed the middle two posts to have “read more..” instead of showing the whole post with all their photos. I think the whole main page now downloads faster which by default gets to the header (which still loads last for some reason) faster.

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  raincoaster · Member · Mar 28, 2009 at 7:59 am

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  That’s smart, and yes, it will help your page load faster.

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  thesacredpath · Member · Mar 28, 2009 at 2:45 pm

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  Did you by chance use the wordpress crop tool when you inserted the header image? If so, then wordpress itself would have optimized it when it did the crop. You’re header image was still on my desktop, and I checked it again, and it showed 50.6k.

  Your choice to use the more tag on that image heavy post is a good one. It definitely loads quicker now.

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  blackops1 · Member · Mar 28, 2009 at 8:15 pm

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  can you tell me why a download is still running after 24 hrs.? trued to retrieve from e-mail from supplier but it is still downloading. thankss