LCP is 2.6s even after optimizing dynamic image (22KB size)

I’m trying to improve the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) on one of my pages. The main LCP element is an image that is loaded dynamically via PHP.

I have already compressed the image and the final size is just 22KB, but the LCP is still reported as 2.6 seconds in PageSpeed Insights.

Here is the relevant CSS:

.ArtistImageD001 {
    display: block;
    width: 100%;
    height: 100%;
    object-fit: cover;
    border-radius: 0 20px 20px 0;
}

And here’s the image element in my PHP/HTML:

<img alt="<?php echo $artistDetail->first_name . ' ' . $artistDetail->last_name; ?>"
     src="<?php echo base_url(); ?>apppanel/assets/artistimage/<?php echo $imageUrlFinalShow; ?>"
     class="ArtistImageD001" />

Despite the small image size and optimizations, LCP is still high.

What I’ve tried so far:

  • Compressed the image to 22KB.
  • Made sure object-fit: cover doesn’t cause content shifts.
  • Verified that the image is not lazy-loaded.

Questions I have:

  1. What else can I do to improve LCP in this case?
  2. Is there any PHP or HTML-related optimization I can make since the
    image is dynamic?
  3. Should I use <link rel="preload"> or something else for the image?

LCP Image

LCP Image