Image Compression
I discovered that image compression is one of my favorite ways to optimize images and reduce their size. You will already be familiar with compressing images. Image editors like Photoshop or Canva can save your files using JPEG compression. This is a great way to reduce large images to web-friendly sizes.
Did you know that you can explore Photoshop and other editing software to compress optimized images? These tools can make the compressed images exactly like the original.
They can be used to compress images for the web and I have provided a list of paid and free options. These tools are available as online/cloud tools or desktop tools.
- Desktop tools
- ImageOptim/ImageAlpha
This free desktop tool for Mac users is easy to use and trust. I love its ability to optimize PNG files before I upload them. ImageOptim allows for drag and dropping of files. However, it is limited to one image at a time.
ImageAlpha can be used in conjunction with ImageOptim for shrinking PNG files, as well as stripping unnecessary metadata from JPEG or PNG files.
The desktop JPEG mini program on Windows and Mac can be used to optimize your JPEG images. JPEGmini also offers a Lite edition for about $19.99. This allows you to optimize up to 20 images per day free of charge.
The Pro version costs $99.99 and is for advanced users. The Pro version lets users integrate JPEGmini in Photoshop or Lightroom. It is most commonly used as a plugin.
I also prefer to save my images to certain sizes. I read the other day the best image size for featured images is 1600 x 900 to make it better shareable on social media platforms. What is your take on this?
I know my content size is 1200 wide without sidebars and 620 with a sidebar (considering padding). I, therefore, resize my images inside posts to 650 wide using an online tool called BeFunky. I like it because it's ad-free. I only use the crop and resize feature. You can also select the quality % to decrease the file size. Am I following the correct approach here?
Thanks again for great training.
Reply
Thanks for this comment. The size of images you use on your website is very personal as it will affect your loading speed and this can depend on the theme that you use.
You need to juggle the size with the effect you want and the speed of loading. There are more expensive plugins and software that can help with this if you are wanting to have a website full of pictures. But what you are doing sounds perfect for your website.
Keep up the great work and keep checking that site speed, once a week. It will flag individual blogs which need work on the images.
Warm Regards,
Lily
Excellent post, thank you.
I've just changed all my images to WebP (WebP doesn't work for GIFs).
Having previously optimised JPG and PNG with Kraken, the new images vary between 50% and 75% of the original size. The exercise has added an additional 10 points or so to my mobile load speed (from about 70 to 80 something for each post.
:-)
Richard
It really is important to work on your images.
Lily
I use cheap software ...
PhotoPad Image Editor for creating good quality images of the dimensions I want in JPG or PNG or other... it allows me to increase the dimensions on images that are too small without getting grainy.
Pixillion Image Convertor to change the format to WebP (or to any other format).
:-)
Richard
Roy
what do you think about this methodhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4PDrmel2CA
thanks
chin
I'm so pleased that you are resizing, it's so important.
Lily 😁🎶
