How to resize images in wordpress without adding any compression or changing the color profile of the images, possible?

Question

As you can guess from the title, Im looking for a solution that allows me to alter the way Wordpress processes/saves its newly created images according to the media settings in the dashboard. This is very important since I primarily use Wordpress as a way to present portfolio images so they need to maintain the same color profile, etc. as they had when they were first uploaded.

The problem is, once an image is resized by wordpress it tends to become desaturated because it changes the color profile, this needs to be altered somehow so that it stays the same as the original and only the pixel dimensions are changed.

The easiest solution to this is to prepare your images to the exact size to be used prior to upload and then use the images actual size setting in wordpress' dialog while placing an image into a post, however this is not very convenient, nor is it exactly a very nice solution for clients that dont understand how to do such a thing before uploading....

Ultimately, Id like to avoid the use of a plugin and just alter the existing script that wordpress uses to process its photos/images, or possibly create a special function for the functions.php template if thats possible....

Thanks for the help in advance.

Answer 1

You can try looking at this plugin WordPress ImageMagick Engine

Replaces wordpress image resizing from GD to ImageMagick. You need a compatible host to use it though

Answer 2

This is a bit of a hack, but you can always add custom CSS to add back in some saturation using filter: saturate(). I find 1.6 is about right, i.e.:

img.size-large {
  -webkit-filter: saturate(1.6);
  filter: saturate(1.6);
}