Images are very important elements of websites and can complement your written content in a professional and appealing way. Especially editorial websites, like modern online magazines or dynamic news websites benefit a great deal from images. Our WordPress themes make use of featured images to display thumbnails (small / large preview images) of different sizes in widgets, within posts and on archives. In case you have issues with images on your website, please see our compilation of most common issues related to images of any kind.
- General handling of images in WordPress
- How to upload images to your WordPress website
- How to add featured images in WordPress
- How to change featured images in WordPress
- Images showing on posts but not within widgets and archives
- Inconsistent or inappropriate size of images in widgets
- How to solve issues with images in slider widgets
- Customizing image dimensions of your WordPress theme
- How to use video thumbnails as featured images in WordPress
- You have not found a solution to your issue?
General handling of images in WordPress #
As soon as you upload images to your website, WordPress will generate different thumbnails of the original image for use on posts, pages, archives and within widgets. For previously uploaded images you will need to regenerate your thumbnails (e.g. by using plugins like Regenerate Thumbnails) after switching your WordPress theme to ensure that all required thumbnails are available in correct size.
Usually WordPress themes have defined different thumbnail sizes for use on posts, archives or within widgets. If you have placed widgets on your front page or within other widget areas and in case you don't see thumbnails, you will need to upload featured images for your posts or pages. Images which you've embedded within your content won't be used as featured images out of the box and therefore you'll need to set these manually or use plugins to assign images automatically.
How to upload images to your WordPress website #
You can upload images to your website in several ways. To upload featured images to posts or pages, click on the particular post or page in your WordPress dashboard and then simply click Set featured image on the right hand side of your WordPress dashboard. In case you want to embed images within your content on posts or pages (not featured images), you can simply click the Add Image button of the text editor and insert the preferred image as you like.
When you navigate to Media in your WordPress dashboard, you can access your Media Library. There you can see all previously uploaded images (featured, non featured, logos, background images etc.), click on images for more details and you can upload new images through the media library as well. For more information about the handling of images in WordPress, please see this tutorial: Basics of Images in WordPress.
How to add featured images in WordPress #
While writing new posts, or modifying existing ones, you can assign any uploaded image as your featured image and this image will be used as thumbnail for that particular post on archives and within widgets. For more information, please see: How to use featured images in WordPress.
To assign featured images, simply click Set featured image to open your Media Library from which you can choose any previously uploaded image, or drag & drop new images into the Media Library. Once you have highlighted your chosen image, you can add additional information to the image, such as Caption Text which will appear directly under the image when the post is being viewed.
How to change featured images in WordPress #
In case you want to change the featured image for particular posts or pages, just repeat the process of adding featured images as described above. The Set featured image link will have changed to Remove featured image, simply click this link to remove the featured image from the post (it doesn't delete the image from your Media Library), then add a new image as you like.
Images showing on posts but not within widgets and archives #
If you can't see images / thumbnails within widgets on your front page or in case there are no images shown on archives, it's very likely that you haven't set featured images for your posts or pages. Featured images are required to make use of these images as thumbnails for your widgets, posts and archives. Images that have been manually embedded within your post content are not being used as featured images (unless you use plugins to assign these images as featured image) and will only be displayed when that post is being viewed. Here you can find more information about featured images: How to use featured images in WordPress.
Inconsistent or inappropriate size of images in widgets #
WordPress themes usually have defined their own image dimensions to ensure that suitable thumbnails are available. In case you have recently switched your WordPress theme and notice that thumbnails are not displaying as expected, for example they might be too large, too small, pixelated or blurred, then please regenerate your thumbnails. Regenerating thumbnails should solve your issues, unless the originally uploaded images are not suitable as thumbnails (e.g. too small).
If regenerating your thumbnails does not help, you can check the documentation of your theme to learn more about the minimum size for images that is required by your theme and upload suitable images accordingly. For example, if you have uploaded images with size of 500 x 300px but then want to display these images within a large slider which requires images with size of at least 1030 x 438px, then your approach won't work as your original image simply is too small and regenerating your thumbnails won't help in this case as you need to upload larger images first.
How to solve issues with images in slider widgets #
In case you are having issues with your slider images (e.g. slider resizes images, slider jumps up and down, etc.) then you have either not regenerated your thumbnails or the images which you've uploaded are simply too small and you need to upload images that meet at least the required minimum image size which has been defined by your WordPress theme. Please have a look at the theme documentation of your WordPress theme to learn more about the required image dimensions. This tutorial might be helpful as well: How to fix issues with images in slider.
Customizing image dimensions of your WordPress theme #
Within our WordPress themes we have defined image dimensions that are suitable for the theme design and which work well with the responsive layout of your theme for optimized results on mobile devices. However, if you are familiar with coding and in case you would like to change the image dimensions of your WordPress theme, you could make use of a child theme and modify the image dimensions based on your personal requirements.
How to use video thumbnails as featured images in WordPress #
If you're running a website that heavily relies on videos, you might want to use video thumbnails as featured images for your posts. Manually creating these video thumbnails can be time consuming and not very straightforward when doing this on a daily basis. Luckily there are various WordPress plugins that can do this job and automatically create video thumbnails that can be used as featured images. Here you can find more information: How to add video thumbnails in WordPress.
You have not found a solution to your issue? #
In case you have not found answers to your questions in this support article, please also take a look at our other support topics, as it is very likely that you will find your answer there. If you have purchased a WordPress theme by MH Themes and have a valid license to gain access to theme updates and support, then you may also send a support request for additional assistance.