Description
Featured Image Sharpen Up makes a tiny version of your featured post image and places it in the head of the page.
As you scroll down the page, some JavaScript lazy loads the featured images in the background and replaces the tiny images as the full images are loaded.
You may have seen a similar effect used for images on medium.com.
Created on WordPress 4.4, but should work on earlier versions.
Tested working on all Twenty Sixteen, Twenty Fifteen, Twenty Fourteen, Twenty Thirteen, Twenty Twelve and Twenty Eleven themes. Should work on other themes, but may need CSS adjustments, depending on theme handling of featured images.
Uses jQuery.Lazy(); (http://jquery.eisbehr.de/lazy/) and Hugh Lashbrooke’s plugin template (https://github.com/hlashbrooke/WordPress-Plugin-Template)
Plugin page : Featured Image Sharpen Up plugin @ mabujo
Screenshots
The stretched and blurred placeholder image 
When the image is loaded 
Showing network requests as user scrolls down the page and images are lazy loaded.
Installation
Installing “Featured Image Sharpen Up” can be done either by searching for “Featured Image Sharpen Up” via the “Plugins > Add New” screen in your WordPress dashboard, or by using the following steps:
- Download the plugin via WordPress.org
- Upload the ZIP file through the ‘Plugins > Add New > Upload’ screen in your WordPress dashboard
- Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
FAQ
- Does this plugin work with my theme?
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It should do! We’ve tested the plugin with all the default WordPress themes and some of the most popular third party themes from the WordPress Theme Directory.
- What if the plugin doesn’t work with my theme?
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The plugin uses standard WordPress hooks so it should work with nearly all well built themes. If you have problems with the plugin and your theme and contact us, please make sure to include your theme.
Contributors & Developers
“Featured Image Sharpen Up” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
“Featured Image Sharpen Up” has been translated into 1 locale. Thank you to the translators for their contributions.
Translate “Featured Image Sharpen Up” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.0.1
- 2016-01-07
- Fix frontend js address bug.
1.0
- 2015-12-17
- Initial release