Topic: Problem with thumb image quality

As an exmaple: This is the image I have in my "thumb" custom field (link): http://orioles-nation.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/noelthumb2.jpg

But you can see that the image shown on the home page is of much lesser quality (link): http://orioles-nation.com/wordpress/wp-content/themes/arras/library/timthumb.php?src=http://orioles-nation.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/noelthumb2.jpg&w=355&h=186&zc=1

Link to home page: http://orioles-nation.com/

How do I get the original quality of the image to be shown on the home page? Why is the quality being reduced?

Re: Problem with thumb image quality

Anyone?

Re: Problem with thumb image quality

The second image has been resized by the "timthumb" library (look at the url), so I suspect that the algorithm it uses to do the resizing results in a bit of image degradation.

One solution *might* be to move to the new arras way of handling thumbs, through the WP "featured image" rather than the custom field.

Last edited by charlesb (2011-03-15 11:00:56)

Re: Problem with thumb image quality

Also interesting to note...

The original image has a height of 185px, but the second image has a height of 186px.

The URL of the second image is:
http://orioles-nation.com/wordpress/wp- … 6&zc=1

Note the "h=186" parameter.

If you change this to 185 instead you get something that looks a little better, although still some artifacts noticeable on his orange shirt. Not sure what my point is really. Maybe if you can coerce timthumb into not resizing to 186px it might look a wee bit better?

Re: Problem with thumb image quality

Thanks. That's a bit better but as you can see the original picture is pretty much crystal clear. Really want to get it back to this.

Re: Problem with thumb image quality

Yeah, I understand. I reckon the only way you'll get that is to ditch timthumb (ie go with the wordpress featured images).

I wrote an SQL script to migrate from one to the other when I did my switch.

Re: Problem with thumb image quality

Thanks, look liked setting it as featured image worked. Since only the most recent post will be displayed at that height, I don't think I'll need the SQL script, correct? As long as I set all future posts using the featured image, I should get the quality im looking for.