Ideal Photo Size

1. STAFF

   Larry Slawsonposted 5 years ago

   Hi everyone!  Hope everybody's day is off to a fantastic start.
   
   I had a quick question, and couldn't find an answer after browsing the forums.  Does anyone know what the ideal image size is for your Hubs (i.e. the main photo for each of your articles)?  I've noticed that when the image is too big, the preview of my Hub (particularly on the vertical sites, such as Owlcation) only shows part of the photo, and not the whole thing.  Difficult to explain, but hope that makes sense haha.

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      Miebakagh57posted 5 years agoin reply to this

      I had not landed on Owlcation site. But hope so someday.

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 5 years agoin reply to this

      It has been suggested that the minimum pixel size should be 1000 on at least one side.  I use this all the time and have never had a problem.

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   Titiaposted 5 years ago

   I use many photos in my hubs and scale them to 800 x 600 pixels horizontal and 600 x 800 for vertical. That's more than enough for the internet. Larger formats take a lot of time to open and as you said are not properly shown. Of course they have to be sharp in the first place.

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   Kenna McHughposted 5 years ago

   That is a great question, Larry. I only have issues if the photo is too small -- too big has not been an issue. The Help Section says "Always use high-resolution, high-quality images."

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4. STAFF

   Larry Slawsonposted 5 years ago

   Thanks everyone!  Big help!  I'll definitely give that a try

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   Kenna McHughposted 5 years ago

   The highest pixel I use is 1200. That seems fine.

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6. STAFF

   Larry Slawsonposted 5 years ago

   Thank you Kenna!

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   eugbugposted 5 years ago

   Photos should be at least 520 pixels wide if possible, otherwise you'll get a warning that they're too small. If a photo is exceptionally small, the chances are that it will get snipped by an editor. It's possible to zoom in by clicking/tapping on an image (the process is very convoluted and awkward on articles, and there is an ongoing unfixed bug doing this on mobile devices). Zoomed photos display at a max res of 1024 pixels wide. Anything higher resolution you upload will be scaled down to this size, so there's not much point using higher res images. Compressing images (while maintaining pixel dimensions) before uploading is always a good idea to reduce the load time of a page for readers.
   I asked in a thread some time ago what's the smallest aspect ratio (width/height) for an image before it gets cropped, but never got an answer. You can try experimenting with something that has a grid on it, or stuff at the top and bottom and see what you lose. I have used an image 1024 x 1394 and it worked fine, but that's about the limit.

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   1. STAFF

      Larry Slawsonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you so much!  Very very helpful!  I will try this.

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      Jean Bakulaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      I always thought they wanted larger pictures too, when we had to change all our hubs and pictures. Now they took one of my oldest hubs, and changed full sized pictures of flowers to thumbnails. I wasn't aware they wanted tiny pictures now. I don't even know how to make thumbnails. This is the hub some editor just worked on: https://dengarden.com/gardening/Shade-G … ocky-Soil.
      
      Normally, if the pictures were not the size of the hostas or impatiens, I would have been told they were too small. I give up.

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         Miebakagh57posted 5 years agoin reply to this

         Hi, there I am not on dengarden.com/ But I want to study the issue via, the link you provide. The article is not found. Does it seem you have to remove it for re-editing? Let me know when it is publishing again. Thank you.

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         eugbugposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         Images display at a maximum size of 1025 pixels wide after zooming in, so that's what I would aim for. There's no point uploading anything with higher resolution.

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   Bede le Venerableposted 5 years ago

   I used to have quite large images as a newbie. Then I realized that large images slow the page load. Apparently, people don’t have the patience or possibly good connectivity to wait on slow pages. So, after I changed the size of my images on one particular article, the views doubled in one day.
   
   I try not to have images larger than 900 pixels on one side, and they are typically smaller than that. However, if you have only 2-3 images, it probably doesn’t matter.

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      eugbugposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      You can use large images, but compressing them can reduce their size by 80% or more while preserving the pixel dimensions.

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         Miebakagh57posted 5 years agoin reply to this

         Noted, please.

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   Miebakagh57posted 5 years ago

   Hello, Bede, I am still on HubPages and not on dengarden. I have no idea what is going on there. But the discussion going on the forum is interesting.
   
   However, I realized with that when Marven takes over, photo sizes change from small to large, and I have adjusted that all that.
   
   But I am waiting for a response to a link for studying the challenge further.
   Good day, Bede.

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    Miebakagh57posted 5 years ago

    I am noting it well right now. Thanks.

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    eugbugposted 5 years ago

    Just to show you the effects of compression.
    This 1024 pixel wide photo had a 1.2Mb file size on upload.
    
    
    
    The next photo has the same dimensions but a quarter the file size on upload.
    
    
    
    
    .....so there's imperceptible difference unless you look very closely.
    
    This is what happens when you take it to the extreme. I compressed the original photo by a factor of about 30.
    
    
    
    I just did a test and uploaded a 1024 pixel wide, 411kb image. When I downloaded it, it was reduced to 114kb so HubPages seem to compress images anyway.

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       Miebakagh57posted 5 years agoin reply to this

       I am learning as I go by in the forum.

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          Jean Bakulaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

          https://dengarden.com/gardening/Shade-G … Rocky-Soil
          
          That's the URL at the top of the article. I clicked the first one I posted and got a 404 message.
          Maybe I did something wrong. This one leads to the article.

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             eugbugposted 5 years agoin reply to this

             Sometimes an editor will replace a series of consecutive related photos with thumbnails Jean. I queried this with an editor when he was working on one of my hubs and the logic is they don't want a reader to have to scroll through loads of images to get to text. I reversed this edit because my images were diagrams with text on them, illegible as thumbnails and a reader would have to expand them out to realise what they represented.

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                Jean Bakulaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                Thanks. If I put the article on Edit mode, it still has that message about how "readers love pictures to be the whole width of the text." I will wait a few days and put the photos I want.

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             Miebakagh57posted 5 years agoin reply to this

             Hello, Joan, I got it and I had a response. A nice and informative hub. Enjoy the weekend.

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                Jean Bakulaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                Thank you Meibakagh. Have a great weekend too!

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                   Miebakagh57posted 5 years agoin reply to this

                   Hi, Joan, I appreciated you very much. Many thanks.

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12. STAFF

    Larry Slawsonposted 5 years ago

    Very helpful!  This is something I've been trying to figure out since I first joined HubPages a few years ago haha.  I will definitely give all these things a try.

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       Miebakagh57posted 5 years agoin reply to this

       So do I. Thank you all writers.

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    Bede le Venerableposted 5 years ago

    Larry, I just reread your question. Here's something I learned from an article by Glen Stok... always make your preview photo square. That way it won't get cropped on one side.

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    1. STAFF

       Larry Slawsonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Thank you so much!  I shall give that a try!

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    SoFaryposted 4 years ago

    Hi! I think you should focus more on the quality than the size of the photo. Most likely, it is distorted due to the wrong size, but this is easy to fix. For example, you can upscale image size online and increase resolution without quality loss. Also, you can improve image quality by reducing noises and sharpening. To do this, you do not need to look for a Photo Studio, you can do everything online because now there are a lot of programs that do this. If you need any additional information, please contact me, I will help you in any way I can.

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