Images for websites. What i have learnt with help from my Friends at WA
Hi - Over the last few days I have been pulling what little hair I have left out of my scalp.
It's all about images, size, pixels, optimization, plugins etc.
I think the training here at WA is great however I think that the importance of getting your images correct is not really rammed home as it should have been, bearing in mind I started here as a complete novice with websites.
My Site is slow, its down to images.
What have a learn't?
Not a massive amount but enough to move forward and improve things.
> When you take your images (my camera is a dslr so the files are big) use the smallest setting on your camera.
> THEN use a free image resizing app to shrink them to 50% or less.
> Avoid resizing them in Wordpress or the WA page writing template.
I did a test using these 3 points this morning on one of my web posts and things improved hugely in terms of speed.
Still a long way to go but I wish I had been told these simple things right at the start of my training.
Thank you to the wonderful people on here who made highly valuable input
Mike
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UPDATE - For anyone who is interested.
I have just gone through the figures for one of my web posts.
It was a post with 11 images, all were originally taken on my DSLR and all had been shrunk using TinyJpeg.
The TOTAL size of the 11 images was 1474 Kb.
I tested the page speed and it was 54% so not great.
I used Simple Resizer to reduce the 11 images by 50%.
I then revised the listing, I removed all of the 11 images and replaced them with the smaller resized images.
I did no dimensional resizing on WordPress.
I viewed the post and it looked no different, the images dimensionally were actually larger but of course were 50% smaller in terms of file size.
I am happy with the way the page looks.
Finally I tested the page speed again and the result had shot up to 89%
I am happy, the speed is now ok and I have a raft of pages that I now have to revise.
Kind Regards
Mike
Hi Mike,
Thanks for your post. It is good to know that someone who has already faced the challenges we newbies will for sure encounter later on provide us with solutions and fixes that will make things easier along the way.
So got a couple of questions. What size are you aiming for and what sort of dimensions so to not compromise quality.
Looking forward to you reply.
Francisco
Hi Francisco.
This is, apparently, one of the biggest issues for newbies.
Image size is crucial to site speed. The training here is great but a bit loose when it comes to images.
Having said that it does seem to be a bit trial and error.
I am still experimenting but here is what I have found so far.
My Canon dslr is about 5 years old.
I have been taking photos on the third smallest image setting which is 2736 x 1824 - I have been cropping these and reducing the size on a free programme called Tinyjpeg which shaves the images down.
These look great on the web BUT are in reality far too big as my site speed is slow.
Over the last few days I have been experimenting.
I have used another free programme called simple image resizer - http://www.simpleimageresizer.com/upload#.XW90z3dFyUk
This programme has a slider so you can reduce the size as you like.
I have tried using this to reduce by 50% and reseting the existing images on an existing post.
This has improved speed on that post by a lot, its still not perfect but MUCH better and the images still look good.
On my next new post I am going to try using images on my smallest camera setting which is much smaller at 720 x 480.
And then see how resizing goes.
As I say its still experiment time but once I have a formula that works I plan to stick to it.
There are some REALLY great people on here and the best advice I have had is to do all the optimisation and cropping etc before you post your images.
Look here Any wa members take their own images for their websites? and Here Website speed optimization - Definitive guide - A great guide by smartketeer
I will give you some updates when I know more.
Kind Regards Mike
Hi Francisco - Just an update.
I have just tested the speed of the page where I reset the images as smaller versions and the speed has jumped from an original result (with large images) of 27% to 73%.
It appears that time helps as it is now 24 hours since I made the changes.
Mike
Hi there Mike,
Right now also reading your other post. Taking notes to run my own tests and will visit Smarketeer this afternoon.
Keeping an eye on this channel to see how things evolve.
I will apologise in advance for my delayed replies. Still trying to learn how to juggle my time!
Francisco
Better keep full original size...on your cam
And resize manually later
So you an use the original pics and sell them on the internet through photo depositories
Hi fleeky. I started off resizing from a large Original but the images were still so big 🙄....maybe it's because some of my posts are refurbishment guides which are visual and need lots of images. Great tip about selling images, thank you. Regards Mike
Yes... hence
Check fhe required formats
Too small pics do not sell
You can always resize
And their is good software for that as well, where you can submit a whole map or directory to one format
.... hey hi Mike --- great tips from an experienced one!
thanks kindly for your helpful share here today! ...
enjoy a delicious, red apple .... 🍎 ... special for you ... :)
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