We are excited to release our latest Thrive Themes update, which will provide a significant speed boost to any pages on your site containing images. And the best thing is: this feature is fully automated and despite how much of a difference it can make, you'd be hard pressed to ever notice it.
Exclusively for Thrive Suite customers, Thrive Themes now automatically optimizes every uploaded image, using the web's best image optimization and compression engine.
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Images, Graphics & Loading Speed
As always, we are looking for ways to make your website’s pages load as quickly as possible, because we know that fast websites are high-converting websites.
Images and graphics pose a bit of a problem for the conversion-focused website creator. On the one hand, images are an extremely important communication medium. Nobody wants to stare at a wall of text, so images are always going to be part of a beautiful, high-converting website. On the other hand, the more images you use, the larger the download size of your pages and the slower your loading speeds are.
The solution is image optimization and none do it better than the guys at Kraken. Kraken is the web’s best image optimization engine. They often manage to reduce an image size by a staggering amount (80-90% reduction is not unlikely), while keeping image quality at an unbelievably high level. It really needs to be seen to be believed, which is why we’ve added examples below.
Without further ado, here’s how to use the new feature and examples of what the results look like.
Thrive Image Optimization Tutorial
Here are some example images, before and after they go through the image optimizer (using the “lossy” setting). Click on the thumbnails to open the full-size images and you’ll see how amazing the image quality remains, even under close inspection.
Example 1
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File size reduced by 79%
Example 2
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File size reduced by 89%
Example 3
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File size reduced by 57%
PNG Example
The image optimization also works for PNG files with transparent backgrounds. PNGs with gradients are one of the few examples where you can actually spot a difference between the original and optimized image, although it’s only noticeable if you have a direct comparison to the original. Here’s an example:
Original Image:
Optimized Image:
File size reduced by 74%
Speed by Default
With this new feature, you can continue using WordPress the way you always have. The only difference you’ll notice is that image uploads take an instant longer to process.
All your images will be optimized and dramatically reduced in size, by default. Every page you build will be that much quicker to load, making the experience your visitors have on your website noticeably smoother. On top of everything else, this feature also means a significant saving in bandwidth, for you.
If you have questions or thoughts to share, please leave a comment below! As always, if you have technical issues with this new feature, please create a forum topic about it, so our support team can help you out.
Amazing!
I took a chance buying a membership, but believed that you would keep your word and keep improving your products. Integrity matters.
Looking forward to promoting your products as a happy user.
All the best
Bill
Thank you, Bill. You’ll be happy to know that this was just one item on a long list of new features, improvements and new themes that we’ll be introducing over time. 🙂
This looks amazing – looking forward to trying it out.
Would you recommend re-uploading existing web images to get the best optimisation for a website?
No need. You can go to your media library and compress images you’ve already uploaded, without needing to re-upload them.
Keep on keeping on, Shane!
Will do, Chik. 🙂
What can I say? Only one word: AWESOME.
Oh, yes, a few more: You guys rock!!
Thanks. :))
Wow – just wow!
I agree w/ Bill’s post above whole-heartedly. Nice work! thanks!
Now that’s over delivery my friend. Excellent work!
Love it. I updated the Theme but the image optimization does not show up under performance. I can manually optimize them though as suggested for the images already loaded. I am using Minus. (and I love it)
Hi Sharon,
We’re fixing this in Minus – new version to be released very shortly. Sorry about that!
I too, took the plunge. I mean, who really needs another WP Theme or Plug in? But I am impressed with the changes you are making, taking a good product and making it better. Any idea on the time frame to add fonts to the WYSIWYG editor?
Thanks!
Thanks, Harvey!
I don’t have an ETA for the fonts feature yet. What I can say is that we’ve finished the concept for it. We’ve created what I think you’ll agree is the coolest custom font implementation in any theme. Now, we’re going about building it for the themes and for the Content Builder. There are several other features we need to finish first, though. That’s why I don’t have a time line for this one yet.
Thank you! This is a such a direct benefit for all of us, and we don’t even have to worry about having lots of images now!
Fabulous stuff Shane. I like the fact you can optimise existing images on the Media page. Just tried it and my site appears to be rocking!
Thanks Shane. This is a great enhancement and value added feature for the Thrive themes. I love this new seamless addition!
Cheers,
Rob
Thanks very much for this powerful and insightful upgrade, Shane. Like Bill, I wasn’t sure if your membership option was going to come in handy, but boy am I glad I took the plunge.
I’m never in doubt about the quality and strategic power of what you produce – this has just connected the dots for me big-time…
Hello Shane,
I am looking at transferring my 4.5 year old site http://www.santacruzconstructionguild.us over to Thrive theme.
Actually, I have a WordPress expert who will do most of that work.
There’s about 600 pictures in the media library. Does each image need to be individually optimized?
Thanks,
Mike
Thanks Shane, for attention to the things that matter… site speed (among other things). Page load time is such important metric these days.
Excellent, Shane! Many thanks yet again!
Thanks Shane! Also, the video is a great addition as it explains the service behind the compression (Kraken) and the value that it adds to us as members. Much appreciated 🙂
Shane, I’ve been super busy since purchasing the Thrive Themes and I haven’t load any of them into WP yet. I’m Just curious if I need to download the themes or plugin again, or does the update happen automatically?
You should be able to upload the original files that you’ve already downloaded and then upgrade automatically through the plugins page in your WordPress dashboard.
That is awesome – I have been manually optimizing images for years and this is such a great approach!
Awesomeness yet again, Shane. Thank you!
Amazing! Just another reason I’m so glad I became a member! Bravo, sir! Bravo!
Great stuff, Shane. Really appreciated.
Hi,
I like to use products of ThriveThemes but it seems that I do not get an account.
Please help me, because It look like this is great stuff, to change my Joomla website to WordPress.
Best regards
I checked the files sizes of both original and optimised and I guess something is wrong in your calculation. Both file sizes are almost identical, only a few KB difference. Not by a long shot the almost 80% you are referring to.
Am I doing something wrong here?
Is the compression set to “Lossy” in the theme options? If it is and the problem persists, please post in the support forum.
This is such an amazing offering. You guys are honestly the best in the business.
Thank you very much, Renee!
I wonder how many people have Thrive and don’t make the most of it. These are the details that really make a difference – slow speed kills – people have the attention span of a flea at times these days. My home page went from 3.5 to under 1 second by using this feature. I hesitated because of fear of loss of quality and never really looked at this all year – big mistake. I think everyone should use this. Thanks for including it as part of the theme – just another reason why Thrive is great value! 🙂
Great result, Dan! And yes, the image quality is definitely nothing to worry about. The differences in the compressed images are practically impossible to see.
Excellent, thanks guys
Wonderful! Thank you!!!
This is an awesome feature.
However, I already use WP Smush Pro, which also provides high-level image size reduction. Can I use them both together to get even better results, or does the Thrive Themes optimization make WP Smush Pro redundant?
Hi Rob,
Using two compression tools won’t give you better results. In my testing, Kraken did a better job at image compression than smush, which is why we ended up using Kraken.
Hi Shane,
If I turn on Lossy optimisation on a site where there are already images will they be automatically reduced or do I need to reload them all again
I can’t find the “Thrive Options” menu in my Dashboard. Does it still exist somewhere??
Hello Natassa,
Do you mean the theme options? What do you want to configure on this options menu you’re looking for?
Hello Shane!
I want to find the image optimization feature as you describe it in your video (video time: 7th second), but I can not find the “thrive options” option on the left side bar, or anywhere on the admin panel.
I see, yes. This has changed slightly. The menu item is now called “Thrive Dashboard” and there’s a sub-menu item called “Theme Options” that you can find there. That’s the one that will take you to the options screen shown in the video. 🙂
I am sorry but there is not such a submenu inside Thrive Dashboard. I can’t find it anywhere in my dashboard in general. 🙁
Which theme do you have installed on your website?
It is not from Thrive themes. It is called Motivate from athinathemes
That’s the explanation, then. The feature presented here is built into our themes. 🙂
i have same problem but i have shapeshift theme installed, i cant find the options
Hi there,
These options were in our old themes, in the new Thrive Theme Builder and Shapeshift we added image optimization options in the site speed tab.
You can learn more about it here: https://thrivethemes.com/late-april-2020/
I use ThriveArchitech (TA) and just recently switched to use the ‘WooCommerece theme (storefront).’ I’ve noticed I can still edit with TA (little buggy) but does that mean I can still take advantage of this feature image optimizer too? The reason I ask is, I can’t find ‘ThemeOptions’ like you described.
Fantastic. Thanks.
Hi Shane, I bought the Thrive Architect for 5 webs and I can’t find ‘Thrive Theme’ as you explain on the video. I have only ‘Thrive Dashboard’ and ‘Product Manager’. Can you help, please?
Hi Milaivlis,
Thrive Architect does not come with a theme. If you are looking for a theme, please consider using Thrive Theme Builder.
Do I need the Smush plugin for image optimization when I upload–or is my Thrive theme automatically optimized as described in the above article?
You need to either us Smush it or Optimole (both are integrated with Thrive Theme Builder) to optimize your images.
How is video optimized through my Thrive Theme Builder? Do I need a specific plug-in in addition to the default Thrive Theme setup?
At the moment it is not. We’re working on adding some speed optimization improvements for embedded videos however a lot will depend on the service you use to host your videos (eg. Youtubd, Wistia, Vimeo,…)