image sizes for Woocommerce

[creatorofstuff]

Hi – I have read your documentation that recommends a width of 540 for the catalog and single product images, and 120 for thumbnails, but that you can have any kind of aspect ratio you wish.

My products (greeting cards) are both portrait and landscape, depending upon the card. Because of this, I think a square crop makes sense for consistency on the thumbnails. However, for the single product image, I would love to give a maximum for height and width, so that whether they are landscape or portrait, they will still be the same size, regardless of their orientation. Otherwise, if the crop is 540 x 720, the portrait oriented cards will be 540 x 720, where the landscape cards would be something like 540 x (some smaller number). Not a great solution. This leads me to my question:

Your documentation does not explain why you recommend a width of 540 (maybe a grid system of some sort for layout?). Is that critical for the single product image? Will I still take advantage of the retina feature if I set a crop of, say, 720 x 720 for the single product image (with hard crop disabled)? Also, will I destroy the layout, especially when a landscape oriented card is viewed?

Do you have any other suggestions as to how I might approach this if I am heading down a slippery slope? I really, really appreciate it.

[neoswift]

Hey creatorofstuff,

Yes the theme’s layout requires images of that dimension. Retina are just 2x that. But overall the ratio must be maintained.
Have you been able to load the example content (using import?)

[creatorofstuff]

Sorry but your answer is confusing. What ratio must be maintained? In your documentation it states that you are able to change the ratio. “We recommend you follow the same width, but you can choose your desired width/height ratio.”

Can you explain your answer further? And no, I have not loaded the example content because it is completely different from my needs. As I stated before, my products are both landscape and portrait, or to put it another way, some are vertical and some are horizontal.

I’m starting to feel uneasy. I just bought this theme and now I’m wondering if it may have been a mistake. I really need some clear explanation and advice as to how one might handle this given what I need with my products. Thank you.

[neoswift]

Hi Creatorofstuff,

First just to make sure its clear (cause I used swift in my username): I’m not associated with the developers.
For the ratio’s its basically just an aesthetics’s issue since the theme has been styled with certain layout dimensions in mind. I actually tried a landscape image to see what it looks like after thinking about what you said and it’s actually quite good 🙂 …I imagine that the documentation just mentions this so that the styling is overly different to what the designer intended.

For the case of mixed product image orientation the biggest issue is in the multiple listings (as the single product page handles either orientation just fine). So with the full listing [http://themeforest.net/item/neighborhood-responsive-multipurpose-shop-theme/full_screen_preview/5086341] images will be cropped to maintain the layout. Therefore to make it work I’d probably just have the landscape images defining the max width for the portrait orientation and then at least there is some consistency. Most theme’s don’t have an elegant solution for this. The best I can figure is the List view mode some offer.

Probably worth loading up the sample data and then just swapping in a landscape image. Your results of that would also help me greatly 🙂

[Swift Ideas – Ed]

Hey guys,

Are you still having issues with this?

The 540 width is used as it’s double the 270px standard image width – for retina functionality.

There is no set height needed for the detail image, as this is set based on the width, so you should be fine with a landscape image.

Let us know how you get on.

– Ed

[creatorofstuff]

Wow, I’m so impressed that you cared enough to follow up on this. I’m very impressed thus far with your support! (Just switched to this theme from another premium theme so I’m doing a little comparison in my own mind.) 🙂 You are winning.

Anyway, I have only just gotten back to this point yet because of all of the problems I had trying to upload the demo data (per the request of neoswift above). Ended up completely deleting my site & database and reinstalling WordPress, the theme, plugins, etc. (per suggestion by my host) which still didn’t work, except for the non-image related pages. 🙁 And I had three copies of each page because of trying to do it three times after reinstalling. But no images. What a mess.

I’m pleased to say that at least things are now working great with the shop images! Thank you so much for checking with me (and for your clarification above). It makes me even more glad that I switched to this theme. It’s beautiful, I love it, and the support is second to none. I can’t say enough. (Plus, your documentation is quite helpful, and so are the pages that I was able to upload. I can see that you go to great lengths to make it as painless as possible.)

[Swift Ideas – Ed]

Thanks for the kind words. Really glad you are happy with the theme and support. Apologies that it has taken slightly longer than we’d have usually liked to get back to you – it’s been a hectic two weeks.

We’d really appreciate a rating on the item in ThemeForest if you’re happy.

Thanks,

– Ed

[creatorofstuff]

My pleasure! I was planning on doing that anyway.