Is there a way to disable the aggressive image compression? - Sense Theme srcset problem

Store Design

Topic summary

Users are experiencing image quality issues in Shopify themes due to aggressive automatic compression, even when uploading pre-optimized images. The main complaint centers on the Sense theme’s srcset implementation, which appears to upscale smaller 360px images to 720px, compounding the compression artifacts.

Technical Solution Provided:

  • Modify the card-product.liquid file in theme snippets
  • Replace existing image code to prevent unwanted scaling
  • Code snippet targets product card images specifically

Remaining Issues:

  • Solution works for product listing pages but images remain blurry on individual product pages and mobile views
  • Similar problems reported in Dawn theme
  • Unclear whether the fix applies to all site images or only product cards

The thread reflects frustration that Shopify lacks a setting to disable compression for users who already optimize images properly. Multiple users confirmed the solution helped, though some continue experiencing quality issues on other pages.

Summarized with AI on October 31. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

Wow. Ok, reading some of these threads and the suggestions for image size/resolution. I think it was the “Make sure your image is less than 4k square and less than 20mb” Seriously, no one should be uploading any images above 1mb. 20 mb is completely out of this world for web let alone any screens. Its all going to downres at that size.

I imagine Shopify put their aggressive image compression into place for people that constantly upload images straight out of the camera without cropping and compressing. I get it, people that don’t know web design assume the higher the resolution (size/weight) the better right? Bigger is always better right?

How do we disable this. I feel like this definitely needs to be a setting to disable the aggressive compression. I am also noticing an issue with the srcset on the Sense theme. It seems to be taking the 360px images and blowing them up to the 720px size. This on top of the over compression of my already compressed images makes a nice hamburger soup but not the intended results for my professionally shot product photography.

I did see a note that if we want to use images that are not over compressed to host them somewhere else. Is that the only solution?

2 Likes
2

Hi @akolea ,

Please go to snippets > card-product.liquid file and change code here:

before
before1389×722 94.6 KB

after
after1307×544 46.4 KB

Code:


              {%- if card_product.media[1] != nil and show_secondary_image -%}
                
              {%- endif -%}

Hope it helps!

5 Likes
3

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

4

Thank you for this! I was going crazy trying to figure out why none of the images would load clearly.

5

Hi I did this and it worked on my products page when you click on a product it’s still blurry, it’s more noticable on mobile could you help with this please?

6

website is https://t6qvm18822usukl1-74826613002.shopifypreview.com

using dawn theme, thank you

7

I have the same issues and ran out of solutions.

Will this code work for all the site images, or just the product images?

Thank you

8

thank you SO MUCH