Hi MAC, your text is a great metaphor for digital creation: between doubts, trends and constancy. You remind us that authenticity and patience ultimately bring out true value. For Kraken.io, if the final size is larger, it is often because of the format or compression chosen — optimization does not always mean reducing the size, but finding the right balance between quality and weight.

Questioning yourself doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means you care.
Your consistency and willingness to learn show real momentum, even when the results feel slow.

Hey Mac, awesome little vlog you’ve got going here. You’re definitely on the right track, buddy, no need to overthink it.

That size increase throws people off, but optimization doesn’t always mean a smaller file, it means a more efficient one. If the original image was already heavily compressed or lower quality, the optimizer may rebuild it cleaner to prevent artifacting, that blocky or blurry look. When that happens, the file size can bump up a bit because the image itself is actually better.

Also remember, album-size images just have more pixels. More pixels means more data. Even when they’re optimized properly, a higher-res image is naturally going to be larger than a smaller one.

What really matters is this:
The image dimensions match where it’s being displayed.
The browser isn’t resizing it on the fly.
Your speed tools aren’t flagging it as a problem.

If those boxes are checked, you’re optimized, even if the file size looks a little heavy on paper.

Hope that helps, bud.