Default compression/size

Hi Phil,

Thanks for the feedback and kind review.

In regards to setting the default to 90 – because the image resizing process is ‘destructive’ in that there’s no way to get back the original unresized image, I didn’t want to set this too low resulting in JPEG artifacts on the majority of resized images and therefore end up with an influx of “your plugin ruins my images” complaints. I felt that the compromise between high-enough quality and low enough filesize was around 90 (I had originally set it at 85 in v1.0 to v1.3). Then if the plugin user desired someting a little bit stronger, they can opt to reduce the value in the plugin settings, or (more preferably), use WordPress’ add_image_size() function to create images at the perfect size for particular locations in the theme (definitely give that function a look).

For the default width, I agree. I’ll bump up the default to 1400 in the next release. What with the prevalence of sliders and larger screens these days, 1400 seems more spot on.

Thanks
Phil (R)

Hi Phil,

That makes sense, agreed! Thanks for getting back to me.

Thanks,

Phil (C)

Phil —

How does your plugin do JPEG compression? Are you aware that WordPress compresses all uploaded JPEG images at 90% by default unless you create a filter to raise or lower this figure? (If you set it at 100% I believe it gets pointlessly recompressed at 100% rather than skipping compression.)

If your plugin passes a default of 90% to jpeg_quality it’s not doing anything WordPress isn’t doing already, and if it operates by a different method then you’ve got bigger problems.

Hi,

Thanks for your concerns but you don’t need to worry.

1. WordPress does *not* compress all uploads to 90% quality. By default, whenever you upload an image it will create thumbnails of it – those are at 90% quality (by default). The original image is left intact. As I’ve said before in other threads and the readme, you should still use these thumbnails, along with add_image_size() to create appropriately sized images to use in your themes. These will still be created adhering to the WordPress jpeg_quality setting. This plugin will only downsize the original uploaded image, including recompressing it at whatever level you set in this plugin.

2. As of version 1.7, this plugin uses in-built WP_Image functions to perform the resizing of the original uploaded image and so will respectively use the best image resizing methods on your server.

Hope that helps,
Phil

Thanks for explaining. I thought the compression rate was applied to the original and the thumbnails by both WordPress and potentially plugins like this.