Title: Improved Thumbnail Quality
Last modified: August 18, 2016

---

# Improved Thumbnail Quality

 *  [Rongo](https://wordpress.org/support/users/rongo/)
 * (@rongo)
 * [18 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/improved-thumbnail-quality/)
 * For a long time, one of the things that has irritated me with WordPress is that
   I have to modify code with every release to have it generate decent quality thumbnails.
 * If any of the developers read this, please consider looking closely at the following
   change for WP 2.3(Beta 2):
 * File: /wp-admin/includes/image.php
    Line Number: approximately 84
 * Change:
 *     ```
       if (!imagejpeg( $thumbnail, $thumbpath ) ) {
       ```
   
 * To this:
 *     ```
       if (!imagejpeg( $thumbnail, $thumbpath, 100 ) ) {
       ```
   
 * Note the 100 added. This will significantly improve the dreadful quality of the
   default thumbnails when large images are uploaded.
 * Alternatively, making this a variable that can be defined in the Admin Options
   would allow people to choose the level of quality for their thumbnail.

Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)

 *  [moshu](https://wordpress.org/support/users/moshu/)
 * (@moshu)
 * [18 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/improved-thumbnail-quality/#post-615760)
 * I’d suggest you join the hackers list where the devs hang out. They rarely read
   the forums…
    [http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/](http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/)
 *  Thread Starter [Rongo](https://wordpress.org/support/users/rongo/)
 * (@rongo)
 * [18 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/improved-thumbnail-quality/#post-615778)
 * Thanks Moshu, but honestly, the last thing I want in my life is even more email
   to wade through, or another group to keep up with.
 * I just thought that this being the Alpha/Beta forum, that the suggestion might
   get seen by developers, or might help others who may also be frustrated by the
   poor quality of the default thumbnails created by the inline WP uploader.
 * No biggie, I’ll just keep editing with each release — it only takes a few seconds.
   Thanks for your response though.
 *  [Les Bessant](https://wordpress.org/support/users/lesbessant/)
 * (@lesbessant)
 * [18 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/improved-thumbnail-quality/#post-615867)
 * If you haven’t done so already, you could submit your request to the ideas forum:
 * [http://wordpress.org/extend/ideas/](http://wordpress.org/extend/ideas/)
 * The devs _do_ look there when deciding what features to add to future versions…
 * Or you could [Kvetch](http://wordpress.org/extend/kvetch/) about it. Devs see
   that, too.
 *  [futurix](https://wordpress.org/support/users/futurix/)
 * (@futurix)
 * [18 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/improved-thumbnail-quality/#post-616101)
 * Do *not* use value of 100 – this is the most inefficient JPEG compression possible!
   With 100 your thumbnail size will be several times larger with minimal visual
   improvement. In order to keep file size small and quality good enough – use values
   between 85 and 90.
 *  Thread Starter [Rongo](https://wordpress.org/support/users/rongo/)
 * (@rongo)
 * [18 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/improved-thumbnail-quality/#post-616113)
 * Futurix, which is why I suggested a variable be used so that end users could 
   select which quality works for them.
 * For me, I am uploading images with resolution of 1920pixels, and larger. Using
   a compression of 85 to 90 makes the generated thumbs look ridiculously bad.
 * For this reason, I am using a variable of 100 and have super clean thumbs. The
   resulting thumbs are about 7 to 10k each versus the 2 or 3k crappy thumbs WordPress
   generates by default. From where I sit, 4 to 7k is a pretty small price to pay
   for decent looking thumbs compared to the horrible quality of the default ones.
 * Quality matters.
 *  [futurix](https://wordpress.org/support/users/futurix/)
 * (@futurix)
 * [18 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/improved-thumbnail-quality/#post-616118)
 * What kind of images are you using?
 *  Thread Starter [Rongo](https://wordpress.org/support/users/rongo/)
 * (@rongo)
 * [18 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/improved-thumbnail-quality/#post-616121)
 * I don’t see why it matters, as the end result is still that wordpress defaults
   produce ridiculously crappy thumbs unless you force the higher setting. So the
   type of pics I am uploading does not exactly matter, the end result is still 
   the same — I have to edit core code to get a decent quality thumbnail to be created.
 * That said, I’m using Jpegs (complex models) saved in resolutions of between 1920
   and 3000 pixels (on their longest side). These files are saved with a Jpeg quality
   factor of about 85% from their original raw format, and are typically 1 to 2MB
   in file byte size.
 * Incidentally, I understand compression versus quality loss — I’ve been working
   with graphics professionally for years.
 * The simple fact is that relying on native PHP image resizing/resampling without
   specifying any quality options defaults to crappy thumbs. It’s bad enough that
   the thumb sizes/ratios are not selectable, but the thumb quality is so bad I 
   can’t believe more people have not complained about it, as it’s embarrassingly
   bad quality.
 * As such, the solution is to either edit code myself, or hope the developers actually
   include a user selectable quality variable for the generated thumbs.
 *  [3stripe](https://wordpress.org/support/users/3stripe/)
 * (@3stripe)
 * [18 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/improved-thumbnail-quality/#post-616140)
 * I can’t believe this has been added to the core yet.
 * Why is it ALWAYS so hard to efficiently manage images with WordPress… things 
   are getting better, but so slowly!
 *  [mrfrazzlebottom](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mrfrazzlebottom/)
 * (@mrfrazzlebottom)
 * [18 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/improved-thumbnail-quality/#post-616147)
 * It would be real nice to be able to adjust the the size of the thumbnails (I 
   am modding my code right now to do this).
 *  [taymind](https://wordpress.org/support/users/taymind/)
 * (@taymind)
 * [18 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/improved-thumbnail-quality/#post-616151)
 * things are getting better, but so slowly!
    I think so. But Don’t let this get
   you down.
 * _______________________________________________________
    I want to learn: php
   Mysql blog of wordpres [food](http://catwebsite.googlepages.com/cat-food-prices.htm)
   of site

Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)

The topic ‘Improved Thumbnail Quality’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [thumbnail quality](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/thumbnail-quality/)

 * In: [Alpha/Beta/RC](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/alphabeta/)
 * 10 replies
 * 7 participants
 * Last reply from: [taymind](https://wordpress.org/support/users/taymind/)
 * Last activity: [18 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/improved-thumbnail-quality/#post-616151)
 * Status: not resolved

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