Title: Choose Header Image
Last modified: April 29, 2018

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# Choose Header Image

 *  [halffrench](https://wordpress.org/support/users/halffrench/)
 * (@halffrench)
 * [8 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/choose-header-image/)
 * Hi
 * I wanted to add header images to my posts. The option seems relatively straight
   forward except that the image used is the featured image. To reduced the load
   time of the blog page I reduced the size of the featured images. This means that
   when applying a header image the image used is of low resolution (fine for the
   grid layout) but it looks terrible for the header image.
 * Is there a way to choose a header image? Or at least use a higher resolution 
   of the featured image like the large size instead of the thumbnail size?
 * Thanks
    Halffrench
 * The page I need help with: _[[log in](https://login.wordpress.org/?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fwordpress.org%2Fsupport%2Ftopic%2Fchoose-header-image%2F%3Foutput_format%3Dmd&locale=en_US)
   to see the link]_

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)

 *  Theme Author [satoristudio](https://wordpress.org/support/users/satoristudio/)
 * (@satoristudio)
 * [8 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/choose-header-image/#post-10232587)
 * Hello Halffrench,
 * we would gladly use a separate image for grid thumbs in Bento, yet wordpress.
   org theme coding standards prohibit any upload fields in themes, hence the workaround
   with the featured images.
 * Getting back to the issue at hand: picking the optimal image size/quality can
   sometimes be more of an art than specific set of rules, but a general recommendation
   would be to use images that are ca 1500-1800 pixels wide if you wish to have 
   full-width post headers. Optimizing such images for size/quality ratio using 
   a graphics suite is always recommended in any case, and you should be able to
   get such a file’s size down to 50-100 Kb without losing significantly on quality.
   Alternatively, I highly recommend the [Smush.it](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-smushit/)
   plugin which does a similar thing automatically for you. Another solution (which
   can also be combined with the previous ones) is to use a pre-loader or a [lazy load plugin](https://wordpress.org/plugins/lazy-loading-responsive-images/)
   to progressively load images in the background after the entire page has already
   been loaded, thus keeping the page load times at a minimum.

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)

The topic ‘Choose Header Image’ is closed to new replies.

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## Tags

 * [featured](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/featured/)
 * [header](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/header/)
 * [image](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/image/)

 * 1 reply
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [satoristudio](https://wordpress.org/support/users/satoristudio/)
 * Last activity: [8 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/choose-header-image/#post-10232587)
 * Status: not resolved