This guide is for designers and site owners who need to optimize website images, compress chat attachments, or prepare assets. You'll learn how to choose the right image format, tune compression settings, and run batch optimization for free with the image compressor.
Step 1: Choose the Right Format
| Scenario | Recommended format | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Photos / real-world scenes | JPEG or WebP | Lossy compression keeps files small with great visual quality |
| Icons / logos | PNG or WebP | Lossless plus alpha transparency |
| Web images | WebP | Usually 25%–35% smaller than JPEG |
| Screenshots with text | PNG | Crisp text edges, no compression artifacts |
Step 2: Set the Compression Quality
- 80%: Default starting point for page hero images.
- 60%: List images / thumbnails.
- 40%: Tiny previews or background images.
- 90%+: High-resolution output or assets for later editing.
Step 3: Limit the Dimensions
If your source is a 4000px camera photo, set a maximum width of 1920px. Optimizing dimensions and quality together usually cuts the file size by 60%–90%.
Step 4: Process in Batches
- Drag multiple images into the compressor at once.
- Set the format, quality and dimensions for the whole batch.
- Click "Compress" and wait for the local processing to finish.
- Download all results in one go.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
What Lossy Compression Actually Does
JPEG and WebP compress by discarding detail your eye is least likely to miss: the encoder splits the image into small blocks and quantizes the high-frequency detail in each. At moderate settings the discarded information is genuinely invisible; pushed too far, the block boundaries themselves become visible as blur around text and mosquito noise along edges. That is why the sweet spot sits in the middle — roughly 60 to 80 quality for photos — and why screenshots with sharp text resist lossy compression so badly.
Compression is also cumulative. Every lossy save re-quantizes an already-quantized image, so artifacts compound. Keep your original untouched, compress a copy for the web, and throw away intermediate versions rather than re-compressing them.
A Workflow You Can Repeat
Pick a target before you start: hero images under roughly 200 KB and thumbnails under 50 KB keep most pages fast. Compress one representative image first, then check it against the original with the image comparison tool — the divider view makes quality loss obvious in seconds. Once the setting looks right, apply it to the batch so your whole set is consistent, and let EXIF stripping (the exif cleaner) remove location metadata in the same pass.
Text looks blurry after compression — what should I do?
For images with lots of text, use PNG or raise the quality above 90%; avoid heavy lossy compression.
Will WebP fail to open anywhere?
All major modern browsers support WebP natively; older browsers can fall back to JPEG.
Does compressing an already-compressed image hurt quality?
Yes — lossy compression compounds. Each save from a JPEG or WebP source adds new artifacts on top of the old ones, which is why the workflow always compresses from the original.
What quality setting should I use for product photos?
Start around 70 to 80 in WebP, check a zoomed crop for artifacts around edges and fine textures, and adjust from there. Product shots tolerate less compression than landscapes because buyers zoom in.
Can compression remove photo metadata like GPS location?
Not automatically. Re-encoding may drop some fields, but the reliable way to strip EXIF — including location — is the dedicated exif cleaner tool before you share.
References
- WebP — Google Developers: https://developers.google.com/speed/webp
- Canvas API — MDN Web Docs: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Canvas_API