The Hero Header Area.

You can choose from three hero header layout options for inner pages and posts on your Hestia website. The homepage has its own options which I dealt with separately.

Go to: Customizer > Header Options > Header Settings.

And choose one of the following options.

Post title overlays featured image.

Post title below featured image.

Post title displays above featured image.

Only this option displays the featured image in the post content area.

Is your navbar covering the post title? Please note!

If you choose the third option, post title above the featured image, make sure you have not disabled the sticky navbar via:

Customizer > Header options > Navigation.

Unsticking the navbar makes the navbar sit on top of the post title, but only with the third option above where the post title and the featured image display in the content area of the post or page.

The homepage of Hestia has its own layout system and its own hero header.

But for the inner posts and pages you must choose from one of three hero header layout options above. Page hero settings on inner posts and pages go to: customizer > header options > header settings.

Featured images on archive pages.

Featured images also display to the side of the post excerpt or teaser text in archive listing pages, such as the blog page. (See image below.)

For the blog page settings go to: customiser > blog settings.

What if you don’t upload featured images?

You can still choose a layout that displays the post or page title in the hero header section of the page, as in option one above. But because there is no featured image, the post or page title will overlay a colored banner area. The background color behind the post or page title is the customizer setting:
Customizer > Header Options > Header Settings > Header Gradient.

Fallback and site-wide featured images.

If you upload an image via:

Customizing > Header Options > Header Settings.

That image will act as a fall back featured image and display on any post or page where you haven’t uploaded a unique featured image for that specific page or post.

You can also choose to display one image site wide, then every post or page on your site has the same hero header image. If you upload several fall back header images you can set them to display randomly.

There are some page types where you cannot select a unique featured image, such as category archive pages, so if you choose a layout that displays featured images, those pages will display the fallback header image as the featured image.

Choose a central focus point when creating featured images.

Hestia displays the featured image you assign to a page or post in two different places, on archive pages and as a hero header image on the post or page the featured image is assigned to.

This introduces a problem. The aspect ratio, or shape of the hero header image, is different to the aspect ratio of the featured images which display on archive pages such as the blog listing page.

To solve this problem, I carefully crop the images I upload, making sure the central strip of the image will look OK in the hero header of the post or page, as well as making sure the whole image looks OK when it’s displayed at the side of the post excerpt on blog listing pages.

This single featured image will now look good when displayed in two different locations.

Also consider how the image will look on mobile, where only the vertical centre strip of the photo will display.