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Can I alter my theme to show my pictures bigger?

  1. kiwiannison
    Member

    I am currently using Skeptical and am pretty happy overall.
    The only think I'd like to change is the size that my pictures show up as.
    I find that portrait/vertical pic are a great size but any landscape/horizontal shots look a little bit small and weedy.
    Can I alter any settings on my theme to help this - somehow move everything over to l/h side a bit more...
    If not I am willing to change my theme but would like something similar to what I have now.
    Anyone help??

    The blog I need help with is kiwiblogbus.com.

  2. raincoaster
    Member

    You could do this if you knew how to edit CSS and purchased the paid upgrade. Otherwise, no.

  3. kiwiannison
    Member

    is it worth trying other themes or are they all pretty similar?

  4. absurdoldbird
    Member

    This might help you find a theme that'll take an image size you want:

    http://wpbtips.wordpress.com/2009/07/23/maximum-image-width/

  5. thesacredpath
    Member

    Even with the custom design upgrade, and CSS, with Skeptical it is difficult. The overall width of the wrapper/container area is about as wide as you would want to go since there are still a good number of people on 1024px wide monitors. The problem with Skeptical is that a huge chunk of width is taken up by the post metadata to the left of the post. If that wasn't there, you would have all that extra width for posts and images.

  6. kiwiannison
    Member

    ok - may just have to change themes ... have had a look through and now considering:
    - Quintus
    - Adventure journal
    - Mystique

    any advice or recommendations please?
    :)

  7. motre
    Member

    @kiwiannison: I think your blog looks great as it is. I can click on the picture (with the middle button to make it open in a new tab) and see the full size picture. The Marokopa one is 4288 px wide so it looks like straight out of a digital camera.

    But if you do want more space for the pictures, maybe look for a 2 column theme.

    Personally, I prefer smaller pictures with the article, and the option to click on them to see them larger (full screen).

  8. absurdoldbird
    Member

    Personally, if I wanted to have large scale images I'd use a theme that had a single column option (ie, no sidebar at all or the option to turn it off) and have info in the footer instead.

    Modularity Lite has a one column option and Chateau has too, though Chateau puts the date alongside the image which cuts out a bit of what could other be available space.

    It really depends on your tastes.

    Bear in mind that if you provide very large imagery - in whatever form - there are two things that could happen that some people (like me) regard as bad news. One is that people on a dial up or not very good broadband connection won't be able to load them at all. The other is that with your full size images accessible, they can be stolen very easily. (Any images can be stolen, but smaller ones will pixelate if they are enlarged.)

  9. timethief
    Member

    @kiwiannison

    The Marokopa one is 4288 px wide so it looks like straight out of a digital camera.

    There are no themes that are 4288 px wide and no one I know has a screen resolution of that size either. By posting such huge images you are increasing page loading time for visitors and those with slow connections may not wait for the images to load.

    If you want high quality images you won't rely on the WordPress.com cropper as using it will result in loss of image quality. Prior to uploading any image into your blog you will optimize and presize every image in either a desktop image editing software or online image editing software to fit the space you intend to use it in, regardless if it’s a header image, or an image in a post, page or sidebar. Doing that means you will also not be wasting your space for images and other media or experience any problems with images that you must troubleshoot to correct. The most common problem with images is uploading oversized images.

    Read more > Cropper or Proper Image Preparation?

    These themes may be of interest to you:
    http://theme.wordpress.com/themes/subjects/photoblogging/
    http://theme.wordpress.com/themes/subjects/photography/

  10. kiwiannison
    Member

    ok - have considered things and... think I'll stick with the theme I'm on for now!

    I tend to take more portrait shots if I can now and they appear well -sized on screen (well on mine they do anyway!) but at least I know people can click on my image if they do want to see it bigger.

    Thanks people

  11. motre
    Member

    BTW, when I said 4288 px wide I was referring to the original that was linked from the one embedded in the blog. The one in the blog is on 479x318, and quite a reasonable size to view inline for typical web browser window sizes. The loading time for the large 4288x2848 one linked to won't happen unless the link is followed, fortunately. That's the way I want to do my photography blog when I get it started. I will have some exceptionally large panoramas at one point, so I will need to host them elsewhere ... like on my own server. What you would see embedded into that blog would be thumbnails, possibly even cropped not showing everything (panoramas can get so wide that fitting their thumbnails in a window might leave them only a few pixels high).

  12. justpi
    Member

    "BTW, when I said 4288 px wide I was referring to the original that was linked from the one embedded in the blog."
    But timethief was perfectly aware of that when she posted her reply. As she said, there's no point uploading such huge files: you increase the loading time of your pages (yes, even if a scaled down version is displayed), you waste your storage space, and you get worse quality. Images you upload should be 72dpi; for best quality on the post, their pixel width should be no larger than the maximum the theme can accommodate; for best quality when you click to view the original file alone, no wider or taller than average screen width or height. The only reason why you'd upload huge image files is if you want others to download those files.

  13. kiwiannison
    Member

    ok - I've had a go on Picasa at reducing the size of my photos (and adding a watermark) before I load them on my blog
    I would be REALLY grateful if someone could check out my latest post and let me know what they think ... does it affect the quality of the photos on the blog etc etc
    http://kiwiblogbus.com/2012/05/04/going-for-gold-in-the-gorge/
    many thanks
    :)

  14. justpi
    Member

    If you mean the quality on the post, yes it's poorer, because the uploaded image is 532px wide while the maximum for the theme you're using is 479px; so again the theme has to downsize the image, and that means loss of some color and sharpness - see here:
    http://wpbtips.wordpress.com/2010/01/16/image-quality/

    If you mean the quality of the uploaded image (the one we see if we click on the inserted version), we can't tell if we can't compare it with the original.

  15. kerrydwyer
    Member

    I tried changing themes to Adventure journal for the same reason kiwiannison but the problem was that all my old posts became distorted. I would have to go and redo them so I went back to liquorice which has the same problem as Skeptical with a wide sidebar. You might want to think about that or try it out in preview mode.
    I upload full size pictured but then put smaller ones in posts. I am not happy with the layout functions and have not yet got to grips with the gallery functions particularly excluding. Still learning.
    I think your posts look great by the way.

  16. timethief
    Member

    @kerrydwyer

    have not yet got to grips with the gallery functions particularly excluding. Still learning.

    You exclude image from galleries by image ID number. * Note: To get an attachment ID for an image, go to your Media Library and hover over the image title you want to exclude. You can find the ID in the URL (the number after attachment_id=).
    http://en.support.wordpress.com/images/gallery/
    Here's an excellent resource on Galleries.

  17. kerrydwyer
    Member

    @timethief
    Thank you so much. I am working my way through the tutorials whenever I have time but that has pointed me to just the right one.

  18. kiwiannison
    Member

    If you mean the quality on the post, yes it's poorer, because the uploaded image is 532px wide while the maximum for the theme you're using is 479px; so again the theme has to downsize the image, and that means loss of some color and sharpness

    so I have to ask.... how do I do this?
    I used Picasa to export and resize my pics - it was set to 800pixels
    what setting to I use to get 479 wide px?
    sorry for being such an ignoramus!

  19. justpi
    Member

    Sorry, I'm not familiar with Picasa: I do it in Photoshop...

  20. roughseasinthemed
    Member

    Slightly different, but when I checked out your blog it still took some time to load.

    That is quite a deterrent when we are all after new readers. Mine isn't perfect but I've just compared the two and mine took less time (well for the last post anyway :D)

    And I don't use Picasa either, I use the software that came with my camera - Arcsoft Photostudio.

    @ justpi thanks for the extremely clear explanation about pic size, storage and quality. Very helpful.

  21. kiwiannison
    Member

    I tried a different re-size on my latest post - still trying to get this right!

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