Users report blurry product images on Shopify’s Dawn theme front-end, despite images appearing sharp in the backend. The core issue stems from Dawn automatically downsizing high-resolution images (1000px+) by half, then displaying them at full width, causing visible blur—especially in modal/zoom views.
Primary solutions identified:
Update Dawn theme: Pull fresh code from GitHub, particularly from product-media files. Requires re-uploading customization images but preserves products.
Modify product-card.liquid: Change divided_by: 4 to divided_by: 1 in the sizes attribute to prevent aggressive downsizing.
Adjust modal width: In section-main-product.css (line 651), reduce width from 100% to 70-80% to minimize blur on click.
Remove width parameters: Delete the dynamic width argument in card-product.liquid’s image URL code, forcing full-resolution loading instead of 360px defaults.
Customize for image dimensions: Users with non-standard sizes (e.g., 1080px vs 1200px) need to adjust corresponding values in main-list-collections.liquid.
Multiple users confirm these fixes eliminate blurriness. The issue particularly affects dropshipping sites using auto-generated images. Some solutions require testing across desktop and mobile devices for optimal results.
Hey guys, I’m having issues where my product images are very blurry on the front end. They are fine when I preview them on the back end. Start happening after I’ve switched to the new Dawn theme. Images that I’ve uploaded are 1000px +, but site displaying them at half of that. Is there a way to fix that? Site: sapandbark.com
Thanks!
I’ve opened an issue on GitHub for this with more details: https://github.com/Shopify/dawn/issues/616
I don’t know why people always ask for your link first
It’s easy my friend
Video:
How to make your product images smaller in Shopify 2.0 Dawn theme
Firstly you can identify the problem:
The product image is too large
In this example you want to look for product__media in section-main-product.css
Then you simply want to change the .product:not(.product — no-media) .product__media-wrapper {
max-width: 64%;
width: calc(64% — 1rem / 2);
}
Change the percentage to whatever you want and you’re done
Hey Hamish, unfortunately this does not solve the problem I’m having. The issue isn’t the size of the block. Issue is that the image itself gets downsized in half and then displayed at full width with making it blurry.
I’ve fiddled with the product-media.liquid file, I believe the answer lies somewhere in these bits of code, but can’t decipher it. The zoom-in modal opens image even larger and even more blurrier.
{%- if media.media_type == 'image' -%}
{%- else -%}
I’m not at home so I can’t test this but you could try removing the if statements like I have here
{%- if media.media_type == ‘image’ -%}
<img
srcset="{%- if media.preview_image.width >= 550 -%}{{ media.preview_image | img_url: ‘550x’ }} 550w,{%- endif -%}
sizes=“(min-width: 750px) calc(100vw - 12rem), 100vw”
src=“{{ media.preview_image | img_url: ‘750x’ }}”
alt=“{{ media.alt | escape }}”
loading=“lazy”
width=“1100”
height=“{{ 1100 | divided_by: media.preview_image.aspect_ratio | ceil }}”
data-media-id=“{{ media.id }}”
{% if variant_image %}class=“product__media-item–variant”{% endif %}
{%- else -%}
I tried this and won’t let you save the code.
Interesting, i’ll have to have a closer look when I get home. Will have a solution for you in around 2 hours
Yes, I believe the same and I’ve been changing the measurements but no luck.
I’ve tried that, no cigar. I managed to get thumbnails to look better, but zoom-in modal is still very blurry.
If you delete this from product-thumbnail.liquid:
But that’s a hack not a solution.
Could you try deleting everything in the
You can always undo after
Removing div’s eliminates all product’s images from the product page or featured product modules. Doesn’t affect collection thumbnails.
width="1100"
height="{{ 1100 | divided_by: media.preview_image.aspect_ratio | ceil }}"
data-media-id="{{ media.id }}"
{% if variant_image %}class="product__media-item--variant"{% endif %}
Try playing with the numbers here
Not it.
Any reply back on this on Github?
Just been trying to 30 minutes can’t work it out - there seems to be two parts of the code which need to be changed though
@vccreative Nothing on Git at all. Is there any way to bump it up in priority somehow? Pretty major issue I think, considering a lot of people may use dropship sites like Prihtful, so all of those generated images (1000x1000) will be blurry in the Dawn theme. I’ve tried everything I could but still cant understand why it’s downsizing images that are already small. @HamishDavisonIC thank you for spending time on this!
@rusinov last night I did something where I reduced the image size so it wasn’t blurry anymore, it was more of an accident and I’ll have to find out how I actually did it but would this solve your problem? It is still bigger than the thumbnail image
I dont 100% understand what you are saying bud. I’ve mentioned somewhere above that I was able to make thumbnails to look ok by deleting part of the code (it has a screenshot of what I’ve deleted), but when you click on the product image to view it larger (modal) it’s hella blurry. Of course randomly deleting part of the code is not a solution either.
@rusinov Try swapping to the other Dawn option, seems to have solved it for me
So I was able to solve it by getting the updated theme and pulling a code from a few files:
Not sure which one did the trick, but it’s better now.
