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Image Best Practices

The optimal file sizes, image resolution and the best way to achieve lossless compression using various methods.

Pro Tip: Images taken from our PWS Photo Gallery stock do not need to be smushed or compressed as they already have been optimized for web and any further compression will cause them to lose their quality appearance. Images that come from the customer or from Pexels should be checked before uploading to make sure they meet the max file sizes for their use as full-width backgrounds, content-width backgrounds or in the site body. If they exceed the maximum recommended file sizes for their respective uses, they should be compressed with one of the options discussed in detail below.

Image Specifications

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    File Size

    The number of bytes the file takes up on your computer. This is the factor that can slow your website way down. A 15MB (megabyte) photo is huge. A 125KB (kilobyte) photo is much more reasonable. If your file size is really big, it’s an indicator that either your image dimensions are too large or the resolution is too high.

    Pro Tip: File size can be reduced in batch using Smush Pro, Photoshop & Lightroom. If the image size and resolution is okay and the only issue is file size, then Smush may be the easiest solution. 

  • 2

    Image Size

    The actual dimensions of your image, in pixels. You probably think of traditional printed photos as 4×6, 5×7, or 8×10. But on the web, the height and width are measured in pixels. So for example, a typical image on a website or blog might be 795×300 pixels.

    Pro Tip: Image size can be reduced in batch using Smush Pro, Photoshop & Lightroom. If the file size and resolution is okay and the only issue is image size, then Smush may be the easiest solution here as well. 

  • 3

    Resolution

    Left over from the world of print, resolution is the quality or density of an image, measured in dots per inch (dpi). A professional printer might require images to be at least 300dpi. But most computer monitors display 72dpi or 92dpi, so anything higher than that is overkill and makes your image unnecessarily large. When a design program has the option to “save for web”, it means saving it at a low, web-friendly resolution.

    Pro Tip: Resolution can be reduced in batch using Photoshop & Lightroom. Typically if you reduce the file size and/or image size, the image gets resized enough for web and the resolution doesn't have to be touched. 

  • 4

    Image Format

    For images, the right format doesn’t exist; it depends on the kind of image and how you want to use it. In short, we recommend to:
    - choose JPEG for larger photos or illustrations: it will give you good results in terms of colors and clarity with a relatively small file size;
    - use PNG if you want to preserve background transparency;
    - or, use WebP instead of JPEG and PNG. It will produce high quality results with smaller file sizes. 
    - use SVG for logos and icons. With help of CSS or JavaScript you can manage images in SVG format, for instance, resize them without loss of quality.

  • 5

    Image File Name

    Image SEO starts with the file name. You want Google to know what the image is about without even looking at it, so use your focus keyphrase in the image file name.

    It’s simple: if your image shows a sunrise in Paris over Notre Dame Cathedral, the file name shouldn’t be DSC4536.jpg, but notre-dame-paris-sunrise.jpg. The main keyphrase would be Notre Dame, as that is the main subject of the photo, which is why it’s at the beginning of the file name.

  • 6

    Alt text and Title text

    The alt text (or alt tag) is added to an image so there will be descriptive text in place if the image can’t be displayed to the visitor for any reason.
    Be sure to add alt text to every image you use, and make sure the alt text includes the SEO keyphrase for that page (if appropriate). Most importantly, describe what’s in the image so both search engines and people can make sense of it. The more relevant information surrounding an image has, the more search engines deem this image important.

Pro Tip: For images in the body of the site, its best to keep the image size around -slightly larger than- the space that they'll likely be filling. For example if you place a 2000px image in a module within the body that will only ever stay a maximum width of 500px, the site will have to load the full sized 2000px image and then resize it to 500px before displaying it every time its visited. Since the image module is only set to display at a width of 500px, its an unnecessary waste of bandwidth to load an extra 1500px of image that wont even be seen.

That's why you MUST resize the body content images to save on load time.

Full-Width Image Sizes

For a hero or a background on a full-width row, its best to use images that are anywhere from 1600px to 2500px in width.

If you're going to give the row an overlay, you can use images in the range of 1500px to 1800px in width since the slight pixelation on larger screens will not be noticed. In cases where the full width of the image is to be see, its best to stick to images larger than 1920px in width only. 

These images should optimally be around 250kb to 350kb and should NOT exceed 500kb in file size. 

full width
content width

Content-Width Image Sizes

If the image is expected to fill the width of the content in a fixed row, the image size should be anywhere from 1100px in width (the default fixed width row size in Beaver Builder) to 1250px OR whatever size you decide to change the fixed row width to during the build.

These images should optimally be around 150kb to 300kb and should NOT exceed 350kb in file size.

Body Image Sizes

If the image is expected to sit in a column beside text, and is not expected to fill more than half of the page on the site, the recommended image size would be anywhere from 550px to 750px in width. For product images or call-out images that take up around a 3rd of the screen at most should have image sizes ranging from 350px to 550px in width. 

These images should optimally be around 80kb to 150kb and should NOT exceed 300kb in file size. 

body images

Sources: JIMDO website tips | Google Web Fundamentals | A better lemonade stand

Using WP Smush Pro

For image optimization we currently use a plugin called WP Smush Pro. When PWS Core is installed and you install all required plugins, it will automatically install and configure this plugin to how we want. So there is actually very little you need to do other than know what is handling the image optimization. Allows adjustments of: file size and image size.

Pro Tip: Use Smush as a last resort to the Photoshop and Lightroom options below. When processing similar sized images that are really large in a bulk setting, it will take a long time to upload to the site, they will all have to be uploaded to the site before smush gets to resize them, and there are not a lot of settings on smush for you to control how the image is going to result or preview the results beforehand.

Smush is best for batch compression of file size on images that are already uploaded to the site. If you are starting a new site and have access to Photoshop CC or Lightroom Classic CC, use those resources first. 

How it works

What smush is doing on the back end is every time an image is uploaded, it compresses it as much as it can without losing any quality. It also will strip metadata that's not needed on a website. If this plugin is installed after a site is built, you will need to follow the following steps:

  • 1

    Install/Activate Smush

    Upon installing V3, smush is automatically installed and activated in PWS Core. You will update it, access it and make sure its active in dashboard > appearance > PWS Core > plugins.

  • 2

    Smush Pro Tab

    Once you have installed the plugin, on the left hand side of your screen click the Smush Pro tab.

  • 3

    Bulk Smush Now

    On this page we want to see if there are any images that need "smushing" this means its an image that has not been optimized. If there are any images that need it, you would see something like this:

    Simply click the "Bulk Smush Now" button. This will go through and optimize these images. You are now done and any images uploaded in the future will be auto smushed on upload!

Smush Settings

Smush may have an enabled setting called "automatically smush my images on upload". Beware of this just in case you have images from the stock gallery that are already compressed or from the customer that are low resolution to begin with.

If this setting is enabled then these images will be forced to compress again, making them visibly lose quality. If you're uploading images that end up looking pixelated, check for this setting and disable it. Only enable it when you're about to upload a bunch of high resolution images with large file sizes.

smush 1

In the situation where automatically applying smush to all images uploaded wouldn't make sense due to their varying sizes, it may make most sense to disable that feature and instead enable the setting called "resize my full size images". This will apply a cap/max size beyond which all images will get "smushed", and below which all images will remain untouched. For example if you cap the image size at 2048px, it will smush all images you upload that are larger than 2048px.

smush 2

When building a portfolio or photography site where keeping camera meta with the image is necessary, enable the feature called "preserve EXIF data". This will compress the images but will keep the meta data. If this data is irrelevant to the site, make sure its disabled so that we aren't keeping unnecessary information and are able to shed as much of the file size as possible.

smush 3

Sources: WordPress Tutorials - WPLearningLab | WPMUDEV plugin site

Adobe Photoshop CC

Adobe Photoshop is a great tool for individual image optimization with attention to detail, but it also has the option for bulk/batch processing if needed by using an "action" - a macro feature. Allows adjustments of: file size, image size and resolution.

Best for individual image resizing where there aren't a lot of images to process, where there are images that may be all different sizes, or that may have details that need individual attention.

Individual Image Size

  • 1

    Open the large image in photoshop

  • 2

    Select image > image size 

    [ Ctrl + Alt + I ] on PC

  • 3

    Adjust settings

    make sure the "width" and "height" link icon is pressed inward so that the aspect stays uniform, make sure "resample" is selected and set to "automatic", adjust the width settings to the max width needed for the image - the height should auto-adjust > hit "ok" 

img size

Saving for Web

  • 1

    File > export > save for web (legacy)

  • 2

    Image Type (JPEG)

    The file type will affect the quality and size of the output file  

  • 3

    Image Quality (60 should usually work fine)

    This is important and can heavily effect the final file size 

  • 4

    Image Size / Dimensions (leave as is)

    We already did this in the first step, so there’s no need to do it again, but if we didn’t do this in the first step, we could just change the dimensions for the image here

save for web

Batch Processing in Photoshop

You can create an "action" in Photoshop which acts as a macro and allows you to record an action to repeat. You'll be creating an action and record yourself saving an image for web, then running it across the source folder containing all the images you wish to apply the same settings to.

Pro Tip: Make sure all images in the folder are the similar dimensions or larger than the dimensions you'll be assigning them during the export - if there are smaller images present in the folder, they will expand to the dimensions chosen and there's no reason to do that.  

  • 1

    Sort the image files

    start by sorting all the images by size in the file explorer and placing all images of similar size range in a folder

  • 2

    Window > actions > create a new action

    specify a name for the action like “batch save for web” - then, click the “Record” button to record your actions

  • 3

    Follow steps from "save for web" section above

    Configure the image size, quality, and format in the promoted dialog. Save the compressed images into your specified folder. (Attention, this step is important!) When finished, Photoshop has recorded all your actions. Now, you can stop recording by clicking the “Stop recording” button.

  • 4

    File > automate > batch

    Choose "batch save for web" action and source folder where you place original images. Then click “OK”. The batch process gets to work and all compressed pictures will be placed in the destination folder.

ps batch macro
ps batch automate

Pro Tip: No need to set the destination folder in the Batch dialog once again. End the action with the destination option “None” or “Save and Close”. This option is for the original images rather than the output and compressed images. The destination folder for the optimized images has been recorded when you are saving the first image for web.

Sources: Richard Lazazzera - A better lemonade stand | Brook Andrews - Wonderfulshare

Adobe Lightroom Classic CC

Adobe Lightroom is another quick way to batch resize images where you have more control over the file size. Make sure you're using Lightroom Classic CC, not Lightroom CC - Adobe Creative Cloud has both, but classic allows you to export for web with specific setting. Allows adjustments of: file size, image size and resolution.

Best for batch processing of high resolution images in bulk that need control over some details and the ability to preview results before export. Most simple solution and best for use when starting a new site that's heavy with image content.

Import Images

Start by importing the images that need resizing from the folder into Lightroom Classic. If needed, adjust them or crop them, otherwise select all and prepare to export them for web.

Export Settings

To export photos from Lightroom Classic CC to a computer, hard drive, or Flash drive, follow these basic steps:

  • 1

    Open the Export dialog box

    Choose File > Export, or click the Export button in the Library module. Then, choose Export To > Drive >  Browse to select a folder where you want the optimized images to go.

  • 2

    File Settings

    Image Format: JPEG
    Color Space: sRGB
    Quality: 60 (or pick an appropriate size)
    Limit File Size To: Check this box and put something like 350 in the field - this will make sure all images are output at 350kb or less - modify this number based on the type of images you're exporting (full-width images/body images)

  • 3

    Image Sizing

    Image Format: If needed, you can resize the images to fit a certain width - if there are images in the folder that are smaller and shouldn't be enlarged then check the "don't enlarge" button
    Resolution: If needed you can limit the file resolution or keep it default depending on what else you've chosen to compress

  • 4

    Export images!

Pro Tip: No need to use all file settings and image sizing to compress the images. Use your best judgement based on the kind of images you start off with to decide what compression tactics would work best without too much loss in resolution. For example, for a hero image you may want to limit the file size to 300kb, resize the long edge to fit 1920px, and leave the resolution as is.

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