Do these 3 things before closing this tab:
1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteCapture a genuine Shopify storefront or faithful design preview, crop it to match your portfolio grid, and pair it with a short case study. A 1920 × 1080-pixel (16:9) canvas is a useful starting point, but it is Figma’s recommendation for its own file thumbnails—not a universal portfolio size. No India-specific thumbnail dimension is established by the available platform guidance.
Choose a screen that represents the project
Start with a live store page or a faithful design export that makes the project recognizable at a glance. A homepage is often a natural choice, but use a product page, collection page, or other screen if it better communicates the work you did. Decide whether the thumbnail should show desktop, mobile, or both; do not imply that a mockup is the live experience if it is only a concept.
Use a screenshot or a direct design export rather than photographing a monitor. Canva’s portfolio guidance specifically recommends capturing and polishing digital work with a screenshot editor instead of taking a photo of the screen: Canva’s portfolio guidance.
Make the thumbnail in a repeatable workflow
- Capture the source. Open the live Shopify page at the viewport you want to represent and capture it, or export the corresponding design screen from your design tool. Use the same viewport approach across projects where possible.
- Create a canvas for the destination. Check the ratio at which your portfolio cards actually appear. In Figma, a 1920 × 1080-pixel frame is a recommended 16:9 starting canvas for a file thumbnail. Figma’s thumbnail workflow includes a Plugin / file cover preset or setting a frame as the file thumbnail; see Design a file thumbnail and Set custom thumbnails for files.
- Crop for the grid. Keep the storefront’s important visual elements in frame and use the same ratio and crop treatment for comparable project cards. The portfolio’s rendered dimensions—not Figma’s file-thumbnail recommendation—determine the final crop. Shopify’s advice about consistent aspect ratios concerns collection images, so treat it as useful general presentation guidance rather than a portfolio-card rule: Shopify product media guidance.
- Check legibility at card size. Preview the export at the size visitors will see it. If the page becomes too small to read, simplify the framing or choose a more representative screen instead of adding tiny labels.
- Export for the publishing context. Choose an image format and dimensions that your portfolio platform supports, then check the result on desktop and mobile. If the portfolio itself is a Shopify storefront, Shopify’s theme guidance discusses image optimization through its CDN: Shopify theme-image guidance.
Pick dimensions and file size for the right image type
There is no single required size for every portfolio thumbnail. Start with the display ratio of your own portfolio, then avoid exporting much larger than the context needs.
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| Guidance | What it applies to | How to use it |
|---|---|---|
| 1920 × 1080 pixels (16:9) | Figma file-thumbnail frame guidance; undated current guidance. | A convenient canvas to begin with, not a universal portfolio-card requirement. Crop to the portfolio grid’s actual ratio. |
| Up to 5000 × 5000 pixels or 25 megapixels; below 20 MB | Shopify product and collection images, per Shopify Help Center guidance. | Do not treat these limits as universal requirements for portfolio thumbnails or every Shopify image context. See Shopify’s product media types guidance. |
| About 200 KB or less | Shopify Help Center’s product-photography optimization target. | This is advice, not a mandatory thumbnail limit or a measured performance outcome. Avoid compression that makes details blotchy. See Shopify’s product photography guidance. |
For Shopify theme images, Shopify advises uploading the best-quality source image rather than manually compressing it before upload; its CDN optimizes delivery and can select a format according to browser support. That theme-image advice is distinct from product and collection image rules: Shopify Help Center: theme images.
Make each thumbnail lead to a useful case study
A thumbnail helps someone scan your work; the project page should explain what the image cannot. Shopify India’s UX portfolio guidance recommends relevant work samples and case studies, and suggests interactive prototypes where possible. New designers can include personal or educational work. For each project, identify the store or project, your role, the brief or problem, and a concise account of your design or build decisions. See Shopify India’s UX portfolio guidance, published April 16, 2025.
- Label personal, educational, concept, or client work accurately.
- Use the thumbnail to represent the work, not to claim a feature or result that the case study does not support.
- If you show a prototype or a combined desktop-and-mobile composition, make clear what is a mockup and what is an actual store view.
Serve portfolio images responsively on Shopify
If your portfolio is built with a Shopify theme, avoid sending the same oversized image to every screen when responsive delivery is appropriate. Shopify Developers documents using srcset and sizes with the Liquid image_tag filter to serve appropriately sized images across viewports. Follow the implementation guidance for your theme: Shopify Developers: responsive images.
Or skip the browser setup
Capture a live page with one request using ScreenshotNeo, a website screenshot API and MCP server. Its cookie/consent handling removes known consent banners, newsletter popups, and chat widgets before the shot; each step can be turned off. Bot checks/CAPTCHAs, blank pages, timeouts, failed loads, and cache hits are not billed, and responses indicate the page verdict and billing status in headers. Its MCP server gives AI agents tools to take screenshots, get page information, and capture PDFs.
With an API key, this cURL request saves a WebP screenshot of the Shopify store. See the ScreenshotNeo documentation for API options and setup:
curl -G "https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot" -d access_key=YOUR_API_KEY --data-urlencode url=https://your-store.example -o shot.webpReplace https://your-store.example with the storefront URL you want to capture. The free plan includes 1,000 shots per month with no card; paid plans start at $5 for 3,000. Sign up for ScreenshotNeo’s free plan.
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