Squarespace makes photo formatting less stressful by automatically optimizing and downscaling images for whatever screen size visitors may be using to access your site. That being said, there are a few key considerations you should keep in mind when choosing and prepping photos for use on Squarespace websites.
First and foremost, aspect ratio matters when creating an image. Narrow photos might look fine on mobile phones but may become blurry when displayed on desktop screens.
1. Keep the Aspect Ratio in Mind
Squarespace automatically optimizes photos for different devices on which they’re viewed, saving time and hassle while taking away guesswork about which sizes photos will work with what types of images on your site. But when selecting images for upload, keep aspect ratio in mind to ensure their optimal use.
Choose an image with an overall length (on its longest side) between 1500-2500 pixels for optimal results when uploading images into Squarespace. This will ensure that no matter the device being used to access your site, its image still looks high-quality on all of them and that loading speeds don’t become an issue for your visitors’ computers.
When creating gallery images for slideshow, carousel, or stacked layout, it is best to ensure they all use the same aspect ratio, to maintain a visually consistent experience on any device. That means cropping them beforehand to achieve uniformity before uploading.
Favicons–the tiny icons found in browser URL bars and mobile applications–should also be kept under 500kb; otherwise they must be compressed before uploading.
2. Don’t Overdo It
Squarespace’s responsive design automatically adjusts images for optimal viewing on any device, eliminating the need to worry about exact dimensions. However, file sizes still impact how quickly your website loads and how Google ranks your website for searches; so it is wise to keep image sizes in mind and limit how many large images are uploaded at one time.
Example: Images with resolutions exceeding six mega-pixels will load faster on your website, and those larger than 2500 pixels in width could potentially be cropped by mobile devices, potentially altering how visitors navigate your site and experience its contents.
Be wary when naming image files; special characters could prevent them from loading correctly and cause problems in galleries. Only use letters, numbers, underscores and hyphens in file names – any other characters could prevent proper loading of files or create errors for galleries.
Animated Gifs may fall outside the 1500-2500 pixels rule when placed within Image Blocks, though even then you should be wary about their size. Gifs consume lots of memory and can have an enormous effect on site loading speed; to reduce this impact it’s often best to resize these types of images before uploading them onto your website.
3. Try Cropping Before Uploading
Squarespace automatically reformats images to a maximum width of 2500 pixels to avoid graininess when stretching them, however if your banner photos exceed this size then cropping might be necessary before uploading to Squarespace.
Image size is measured in megabytes; one million pixels equal 1 megabyte (MB). If possible, try to keep image files under 20MB as larger uncompressed files will slow the speed at which they’re uploaded and hinder Google’s indexing abilities.
Your images should ideally be saved using the sRGB color mode – the default setting on most digital cameras – to ensure optimal rendering on both computer screens and mobile devices. CMYK mode, used only for printing purposes, does not work well on mobile devices and should therefore be avoided.
Squarespace automatically generates six copies of every image you upload to your site in various sizes and resolutions, to ensure they look crisp and sharp across all screen sizes for visitors. For optimal results, try to keep all photos within this range so they remain consistent across platforms and devices.
4. Keep Your File Formats in Mind
Dimensions can have a tremendous effect on how photos appear on your site. Higher resolution photos require larger file sizes to upload and load faster, which takes more time overall.
Squarespace will reformat large images (such as background or banner images ) to a maximum width of 2500 pixels for optimal display, which still offers enough resolution that the picture won’t appear blurry or pixelated.
Before uploading any images to your site, it is still wise to optimize them first for optimal loading speeds and SEO (Search Engine Optimization – which measures how well people find you on Google). This will also increase user engagement with your content and boost SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
One way of doing this is ensuring your images are saved in an appropriate format – specifically using.jpg or.gif files saved in RGB color mode as opposed to CMYK which is often used in printing). Also ensure the names of your images contain only letters, numbers, underscores, and hyphens – any other characters may prevent your site from loading the images properly.
By following these simple guidelines, you should be able to successfully upload photos onto your Squarespace site without the worry of it taking too long to load or negatively affecting SEO. Just ensure your image resolution meets recommended specifications as well as standardizing file names and formats so your site looks great on all devices.
