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HTML Academy · Lesson

Responsive Images with srcset and sizes

Serve appropriately sized images to different screen densities.

The Problem with Single Images

A single large image served to all devices wastes bandwidth on small screens:

  • A phone with a 390px screen does not need a 2400px image
  • A 4K monitor deserves a higher-resolution image than 96dpi
  • Responsive images serve the right image for the right screen

The srcset Attribute

srcset provides a list of image sources with their widths:

<img
  src="photo-800.jpg"
  srcset="
    photo-400.jpg  400w,
    photo-800.jpg  800w,
    photo-1600.jpg 1600w
  "
  alt="Mountain landscape"
>
<!-- 400w, 800w, 1600w = intrinsic widths of each file -->
<!-- Browser chooses the best match for the device -->
<!-- src is the fallback for browsers that don't support srcset -->

All lessons in this course

  1. The img Element src alt width height
  2. Responsive Images with srcset and sizes
  3. The picture Element for Art Direction
  4. figure and figcaption
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