A working guide
Image standards — aesthetics, speed, and consistency.
The images you upload shape three things visitors judge the theatre by: how the site looks, how fast it loads, and how professional the brand feels. This guide covers the specs for every image context on the site, plus the prep steps that keep them tight.
Why standards matter
Three things move together when image discipline slips.
Aesthetics. The theatre’s site uses a consistent 16:9 landscape frame across sliders, event cards, and show landing pages. When someone uploads a portrait phone photo, it gets cropped or letterboxed and looks amateur next to the rest. Consistent aspect ratios are the single most important brand cue.
Speed. A raw iPhone photo is often 4032 × 3024 pixels and 4–6 MB. The site auto-scales it down for display, but the visitor still downloads the full file. On a phone with weak signal, that adds 3–8 seconds of load time per image. Multiply by 4 event cards on the homepage and mobile visitors bounce before they see anything.
SEO and search discovery. Google Search, Google Maps, Google’s “Things to Do” carousel, and social share previews all use whatever image you upload. If it’s blurry, wrong-aspect, or too heavy, your organic reach shrinks — regardless of how good the content is.
The golden rules
Follow these four rules and 95% of the work is done.
- Landscape 16:9 orientation for hero images, event posters, and slider slides. Portrait works only for playbill front covers.
- Under 500 KB per file, always. If you’re above, compress before uploading.
- JPG for photography, PNG for graphics with typography. WebP works too but isn’t universal — stick to JPG/PNG.
- Every image needs alt text. Describe what’s in the image, not “poster for X”.
Why “under 500 KB”?
Google’s mobile page-speed target is under 3 seconds on a 4G connection. Every 500 KB of images adds roughly 1 second on cellular. Four images at 500 KB each = 2 seconds of just images. Anything over that dilutes conversion measurably.
Where images appear on the site
Each context has a specific size and treatment. Pick the right one for what you’re uploading.
Preparing images before upload
The three steps that separate a fast, sharp site from a slow, blurry one.
- Crop to 16:9. Use Preview (Mac), Windows Photos, or any editor. If starting from a portrait phone photo, crop tightly to keep faces intact.
- Resize to the target dimensions. Never rely on the browser to shrink a 4032 × 3024 image to display at 800 × 450 — that’s four times more data than needed. Set your export to exactly the recommended size for the context.
- Compress. Export at 80% JPG quality (or run through a compressor like TinyPNG / Squoosh). Check the file size before uploading — if it’s above 500 KB, compress more.
The biggest mistake — uploading from phone
Do not drag a photo straight from iPhone Photos into WordPress. A raw phone photo is 4–6 MB, wrong aspect ratio, and often the wrong orientation (portrait). Take 30 seconds to crop, resize, and compress. It’s the single change that speeds up the site more than anything else.
Format & compression
Different image types compress differently. Pick right and save 50-80% of file size.
Alt text & filenames
Two small text fields that matter more than most people realize.
Alt text
The Alternative Text field appears when you upload or edit an image. It’s used by:
- Screen readers — visually impaired visitors hear this description read aloud. Accessibility requirement.
- Google image search — Google uses alt text to understand what the image contains.
- Broken-image fallback — if the image fails to load, the alt text shows instead.
Good alt text describes the image contents plainly:
- ✓ “Cast of In the Heights performing ‘Carnaval del Barrio’ in bright neighborhood costumes”
- ✓ “Seminole Theatre marquee lit up at dusk with ‘GREASE’ in white letters”
- ✓ “Charles Benitez directing rehearsal on the main stage”
Bad alt text (avoid):
- ✗ “Poster” or “Image” or “IMG_3847” (meaningless)
- ✗ “Click here to buy tickets” (that’s a CTA, not a description)
- ✗ “In the Heights In the Heights In the Heights Seminole Theatre tickets 2026” (keyword stuffing — Google penalizes this)
Filenames
Rename files before uploading. Descriptive filenames help SEO and admin sanity:
- ✓
in-the-heights-cast-carnaval.jpg - ✓
seminole-theatre-marquee-night.jpg - ✗
IMG_3847.jpgorScreenshot 2026-07-20 at 4.54.44 PM.png
What NOT to do
Common mistakes that quietly degrade the site.
- Don’t upload the raw phone photo. Ever. Always crop, resize, compress first.
- Don’t upload PDFs as images. If you have a show poster as a PDF, export it to JPG at the target dimensions.
- Don’t use screenshots when a real photo exists. A photo of the actual show is worth more than a screenshot of Instagram.
- Don’t rely on the “featured image” being cropped correctly. The site displays it landscape (16:9). If the source is portrait, the top and bottom get cut off — with faces or the show title.
- Don’t upload images with copyright watermarks visible. Getty, Alamy, Shutterstock — these charge if their watermarked previews go live.
- Don’t upload images larger than 3 MB, even by mistake. The site’s compressor plugin will handle small overages, but 3 MB+ files can time out during upload on slow connections.
Recommended tools
The lightweight kit that covers 100% of what staff need.
Quick reference table
Print this section or bookmark it. Everything you need at a glance.
Universal rules
- Landscape 16:9 orientation (except playbill covers = portrait).
- Alt text always. Describe the image contents.
- Descriptive filename before upload.
- Compress before uploading. Verify size in Finder / File Explorer.
