SSP Director Tools vs Smush – Image Optimization, Compression, Lazy Load, WebP & CDN

This Plugin uses the SSP Director API to pull content from SlideShowPro Director. Features: Insert a single image from SSP Director into a post using a shortcode. Insert a photo grid with multiple images from SSP Director into a post using a shortcode. Query SSP Director for albums, galleries, tags and configure the sorting of the output. Photo grids with random images are possible. Insert widgets into your theme if you want to display a photo grid in a widget area. Sizing and image handling are according to your default settings but can be overridden by shortcode attributes. Use image metadata provided by SSP Director for formatting image captions. Enable/disable photo feed functionality which generates an encrypted RSS photo feed URL for photo grids. Use FancyBox to display photos in lightbox style. Shortcode Help Use this shortcode: [sspd]. List of allowed attributes: album: The id of an album to show (integer). gallery: The id of a gallery to show (integer). image: The id of a single image to show (integer). align: Alignment of a single image (left|center|right, default: left). caption: Whether or not to show the caption of a single image (yes|1|no|0, default: 1). limit: The maximum number of images to be shown in a grid (integer, default: 0). 0 if unlimited. tags: List of tags to filter the content by, separated by commas. tagmode: Mode in which the tag filter works. Match all tags or any out of the list (all|one, default: one). sort_on: The sort field (null|created_on|captured_on|modified_on|filename|random, default: null). sort_direction: The sort order (ASC|DESC, default: DESC). rss: Whether or not to show a RSS photo feed link below the photo grid (yes|1|no|0, default: 1). If no attributes are specified, the default plugin settings apply as defined in the sections “Photo Grid Defaults” and “Image Sizes and Handling”. Example: [sspd gallery="6" limit="10" tags="technology" sort_on="captured_on" sort_direction="DESC"]: This will output the 10 most recent photos of gallery 6 which are tagged with "technology". Using captions Image captions are automatically generated using image metadata. You can define different captions for preview images and images presented by FancyBox. Use placehoders like %placeholder% in your caption definitions and define how dates will be formatted. List of allowed placeholders: %caption%: The image caption as provided by Director. If the caption is not set in Director, the IPTC caption is used instead. %byline%: The IPTC byline %city%: The IPTC city %country%: The IPTC country %date%: The image capture date from the EXIF record Date formatting: Use common PHP date formats. Using HTML in your captions: You may use the following HTML elements and attributes: , , , , , Example: %caption% (%date%) Photograph by %byline% Known Issues A bug in the Director API v. 1.5.0 beta generates a wrong result when a query with multiple tags is done. See SSP Director Forum. photo grids and photo feeds don’t work for smart galleries and albums. (Seems to be a Director bug.) The plugin currently doesn’t check if the photo feed feature is installed correctly. The photo feeds don’t show the real sizes of the downloadable enclosures, but the sizes of the originals.

Compress images, optimize images, and enable image lazy load automatically with the powerful Smush image optimizer to keep your WordPress site fast, without losing quality. Smush makes it easy to optimize images, compress images, and deliver images faster across your entire WordPress site. This all-in-one image optimizer automatically reduces image file sizes, enables image lazy load, and serves modern formats like WebP and AVIF, all without breaking image quality or adding extra work. Whether you’re running a blog, store, or portfolio, Smush helps you optimize images at scale and keep your site fast with a trusted WordPress image optimizer. Trusted by 1+ Million Sites | 4.8/5 Star Rating Get everything you need to optimize images and speed up your site. Smush works out of the box with no complicated setup – just install and let it handle the rest. Compress images without losing quality Reduce image file size automatically while keeping your images sharp and clear. Smush is an easy-to-use image optimizer which let’s you compress images using both lossless and lossy compression, giving you the best balance of quality and performance without extra work. You can also compress images outside the media library using Directory Smush, making it easy to optimize images stored in theme folders, plugins, or other directories on your server. Lazy load images for faster pages Enable image lazy load across your site so images load only when needed. This image optimizer improves initial page speed and creates a smoother experience for visitors without extra configuration. Serve WebP and AVIF images automatically (PRO) Convert images to WebP and AVIF and serve them automatically to supported browsers. Smush helps you optimize images using next-gen formats to reduce file size and improve load times across your WordPress site. Deliver images faster with an Image CDN (PRO) Serve images through a global image CDN to reduce latency and improve load times for visitors around the world. 119 global CDN servers Up to 500 GB of bandwidth Faster image delivery based on visitor location Improved performance for image-heavy and high-traffic sites Automatically resize and fix image dimensions (PRO) Eliminate common PageSpeed warnings and improve layout stability with automatic image sizing. Smush dynamically resizes images to perfectly fit their containers, regardless of original size, helping fix the “Properly size images” warning in Google PageSpeed Insights. It also automatically adds missing width and height attributes to your images, improving rendering speed and reducing layout shifts. This helps you meet the “Ensure images have explicit width and height” recommendation without any manual work. Optimize your entire site, automatically Smush works across your whole site as a powerful image optimizer to optimize images as you upload them and maintain performance over time without manual work. Optimize images automatically on upload Compress images in bulk or individually Works with your existing media library No need to re-upload images Enable image lazy load across your site Convert images to WebP and AVIF Deliver images with an integrated image CDN Automatically resize and serve correctly sized images Optimize images outside the media library with Directory Smush Built for performance Smush improves page speed and overall performance by reducing image weight and improving how images are delivered. Reduce page load times Improve user experience Better performance for image-heavy pages Supports image lazy load and preload images (PRO) for faster perceived performance Works with your existing setup Smush is built to work with your current WordPress setup, including popular themes, page builders, and plugins. Compatible with Gutenberg, Elementor, WPBakery, and more Works with WooCommerce stores No need to change your workflow Easy to enable and configure Designed to be simple You don’t need to be a performance expert to optimize images with Smush image optimizer. Works out of the box Simple settings when you need them No technical knowledge required Safe to use on any site Why choose Smush? There are plenty of image optimization plugins, but Smush focuses on making it easy to optimize images, compress images, and improve performance without complexity. As a leading WordPress image optimizer, Smush gives you powerful optimization tools without the technical hassle. Trusted by over 1 million WordPress users Built specifically for WordPress Regular updates and improvements Backed by the WPMU DEV team Get started in minutes Install Smush, activate it, and start to compress images, optimize images, and enable image lazy load right away. This easy-to-use image optimizer helps most sites see improvements immediately without changing how they upload or manage images. About Us WPMU DEV is a premium supplier of quality WordPress plugins, services and support. Learn more here: https://wpmudev.com/ Don’t forget to stay up to date on everything WordPress from the Internet’s number one resource: WPMU DEV Blog Hey, one more thing… we hope you enjoy our free offerings as much as we’ve loved making them for you! Contact and Credits Originally written by Alex Dunae at Dialect (dialect.ca, e-mail ‘alex’ at ‘dialect dot ca’), 2008-11.