HELP: Tips on how to optimize images

[shevek]

Hi, I would love to know your way to optimize images for your websites and/or forums so they are a small file size and load quickly while it is barely noticeable that it was compressed/optimized and still showing the contents of the image well.

Any specific processes, steps, software you like to use? How much do you scale down your images? I have to say, natively my phone takes very large images. I usually scale them down to 800 x something. Most of my stuff is .png as well so it tends to be larger.

I know @Melooon uses ImageOptim, but it seems to only be for Mac and the Win alternatives they link don't really blow me away.

[Corrupted Unicorn]

My go-to thingy to optimize images is Squoosh! You can see the percentage it reduces file size too and you can compare before and after, in case you're picky about quality

[Skykristal]

The photos I takes are carzy large and I always scale them down with paint.net. I prefer that over using an online service.

1. I open image with paint.net
2. I resize. Often I keep them 800px maximum. Often smaller
3. I export as jpeg and set the quality to around 60- 80%
Sometimes I also export as 8bit, 24bit etc etc instead of "auto" when exporting PNG. that reduces the size most.

for anything else (like my art files or decor graphics) I simply resize them with my drawing app. Scale down the pixels but so that it still looks good. Nothing fancy.

[Melooon]

Im not sure if it's any good, but I literally just saw an ad for this site on PicMix  It seems to be able to compress GIFs too (most compressors can't do GIFs and I think that's a really important feature for the kinds of sites we do) - https://www.imgtools.co/compress-image

Also as Sky said; exporting from your image editor is also a great way to go; particularly if you're making custom images or graphics for your site. Some programs offer "web export" presets. Those are good options - for JPEGs and PNGs you wanna make sure you are exporting them in "progressive" mode (that makes them load more smoothly online) -. You also wanna remove any metadata that might have personal info like GPS data if it's a phone picture!

[Memory]

Sometimes I tend to use ffmpeg with JPEG for compress images, for me it does a good job.

[Memory]

You need a good image program first. Proper programs instead of online services, where 90% are ad-infested trash. I use PhotoImpact as image editor and on new machines, the free GraphicsGale. On Linux, GIMP, Kolourpaint and mtPaint, where every program is more capable than another in certain areas. Just test various programs, but don't stay with MS Paint, that restricts you too much.

For scaling down images, that program has to be the choice between smoothing edges (better for photos) and keeping edges sharp (for pixel graphics).

Then the program has to have the option to reduce the colour palette to 256 and less colours. That way, you'll save a lot of KB too. I was doing some tests with various image formats here:
https://forum.melonland.net/index.php?topic=590.msg4127#msg4127

JPG images don't profit from a low-colour palette however. But you can save a lot of the file size on JPGs through reducting the "Quality" from 100 to 90 for example. But the image might look bad afterwards (JPG artifacts), so it depends.

[shevek]

Thank you all, this has helped lots with my Bluebrixx building journal on my website right now. Was able to upload smaller pictures now that look great but will hopefully load fast for most people.