Nobody wants blurry images. But nobody wants slow websites or bounced emails either. Here are proven techniques to shrink image file sizes while keeping them looking sharp.
This is the single biggest win. A PNG photo can be 4-10 MB. The same image as JPG at 85% quality is 200-500 KB — 95% smaller — with zero visible difference for photographs. PNG should be reserved for screenshots, logos, and graphics with text.
JPG at 85-92% quality is the sweet spot — visually indistinguishable from 100% but dramatically smaller. Going below 80% introduces visible artifacts. WebP at 80-90% quality achieves similar visual results with even smaller files.
The most common waste: a 4000×3000 photo displayed at 800×600. Resize to the actual display dimensions first — this alone can reduce file size by 90% before compression even starts.
EXIF data, GPS coordinates, camera settings, and embedded color profiles add 5-50 KB per image. For web use, strip everything. Use our free compressor to handle this automatically.
WebP is 25-35% smaller than JPG. AVIF is up to 50% smaller than WebP. Both are supported by all modern browsers. Use them for web images — keep JPG/PNG as fallbacks for legacy support.