There was a question recently in Q&A that asked what the ideal size for featured images should be? I saw a lot of different answers there (700, 640, 1800, 1450). And while every one of those answers was not "wrong", none that I saw hit the bullseye.
You see, whatever size that you do upload, it is going to be automatically sized in CSS rules to 100%. That means that it will either resize your image bigger or smaller to match the available space in the given container on the page.
The container width in our layout is 901 pixels.
So the most optimized feature photo will be sized to 901 pixels wide.
Does it matter if you upload a 640 pixel image or an 1800 pixel image instead?
Both will work! 640 image will grow and 1800 image will shrink to fit. The 640 image will not be as sharp as using a 901 pixel image, but the difference is probably indistinguishable to most people except for the most discerning eyes. The 1800 pixel image will look great but the file size will be about twice as big as it could be if it were downsized and optimized. By not being downsized, it will make the page load time somewhat slower. It's just something to be aware of.
So if you are on an image download site (pexels, pixabay, etc) and they offer you 1080 or 1200 width downloads. Those are a pretty close match and would be a good choice without further intervention. Don't download the 3000 or 5000 pixel width options because that will make a huge file size (page load time) difference.
If you are using your own photos and they are huge widths, use your favorite resizing tool to save a downsized copy to use instead.
There is one other consideration on featured images to note. If you upload a vertically oriented image (height is bigger than width). ActiveRain will resize the image to match the content width, but at that point anything outside a 700 pixel frame height will be chopped off. This means the top and bottom of your photo will be cut. Sometimes that's ok, often it's not (in other words it may crop off the part that you wanted to see). It's best to pre-crop any vertical images before you post it as a featured image so that way you have full control of the cut.
Anyway, I have to run now. I wanted to say hello and a quick Craig's Classroom tutorial seemed like a good way to say hello.
Here's my video!
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