If you are a graphic designer, you probably don’t think to much about size when you need to compress images. In doing this, you are right. For printing, the most important thing should be the quality of the image.
For web designers, it’s another story. Despite fast internet speeds, small size internet pages are crucial for faster load. The fastest your site loads, the more successful it will be. Even Google likes fast websites better.
Images are often one of the heavy elements of a web pages, so using the optimal compression is important, make the page smaller and make sure it still looks good. Here are some of the tools you can consider if you want to reduce your images sizes before using them on your website.
FILEminimizer
A Windows-only software that let you compress all kinds of image formats: JPEG, BMG, GIF, TIFF, PNG, or EMF. I use it now to compress images before uploading on Designer Daily, as it’s probably the best on the market for lossless JPEG compression.
The interface is very classic, but easy to use, and it allows you to choose your compression level and give you the possibility to batch process images. For social media addicts, it even let you upload images directly to Facebook. The best part, FILEminimizer is free software.
ImageOptim
An OSX app that perfectly integrates with Apple’s design style and is extremely easy to use. It works by taking the best scripts to optimize images for each format, like PNGOUT or Gifsicle.
It optimizes compression parameters, removes junk metadata and unnecessary color profiles. It can even further compress images that have been saved for web with Photoshop, which is pretty cool. ImageOptim is free and Open Source software.
FileOptimizer
FileOptimizer allows for compression of tons of file formats. It goes way beyond simply compressing pictures, but it seems to work the best for PNG files. It works on Windows and can be used also for compressing HTML, CSS, or JS files as well, so it’s a pretty cool tool for developers. It’s also free and open source.
TinyPNG
A web app that allows you to compress PNG files while still keeping full alpha transparency. As its name doesn’t suggest, the app also let you compress JPEG files now, which is awesome. This website is very cool because it features a panda on the homepage, but also for being efficient and providing plugins for Photoshop, Magento, and WordPress. And before you ask, yes, TinyPNG is free to use!
JPEGmini
JPEGmini is the only non-free app in this list, but it’s also the only multi-platform one (apart from the web apps and plugins). It can work on Mac or PC, and some plans have Lightroom plugins or server support as well. So yes, it does have a cost, but it’s a very professional tool too.
WP Smush
WP Smush is a WordPress plugins that take each image you upload and compress it on the fly to optimize it for faster display. A great way to get smaller images on your website without any additional effort from you or your users.
About the Author
Mirko Humbert
Mirko Humbert is the editor-in-chief and main author of Designer Daily and Typography Daily. He is also a graphic designer and the founder of WP Expert.