How many slides should you have in your slideshow?
We suggest no more than six to eight slides. If you have more slides that’s fine but you need to choose an optional setting on the website to ensure a level of ‘fairness’ is given to all of your images.
If you have dozens of slides, your web page will be slower to load. In addition, the last slides will probably never get seen so we need to set the slideshow up slightly differently to accommodate these two issues. We cover this situation in section 11.14
Is there an ideal size for the images which I have in my slideshow so they don't look pixelated?
Because modern websites are responsive (they change shape based on the screen), there isn't one "perfect" pixel size, but there is a perfect strategy. Here is how to size your images for a professional look:
The "Golden Dimensions"
For most settings, you want to aim for a 16:9 aspect ratio (the same as a modern TV or laptop screen).
| Position | Recommended Size (Pixels) | Why? |
|---|---|---|
| Full Width | 1920 x 1080 | Covers standard HD monitors without looking blurry. |
| Boxed / Inside Content | 1280 x 720 | Great balance of quality and fast loading for smaller areas. |
| Mobile Optimized | 720 x 1280 | (Optional) Use this if you want a different "tall" image for phones. |
You can of course have a slider which is not as tall as those mentioned above, such as 1920x800 pixels. This will be ideal for a full-width slideshow, but will not consume quite as much real estate on the page when it loads.
When you export your photographs from your camera, quite often it will be at least 1920 by 1080 pixels in size, but often it may be larger. If this is the case, you'll be loading an image which is unnecessarily large (in pixels and in MB size). Section 7 of these help pages tells you all about the importance of image sizes, file formats, and compression, so that if you do have a huge image from your digital camera, you'll be able to scale it down such that it fits into one of the recommended sizes noted above.