You took a screenshot, saved a photo, or exported a design — and the file is 5 MB. Why? Here are the most common causes and exactly how to fix them.
This is the #1 cause of bloated images. PNG is a lossless format — it preserves every pixel perfectly. Great for screenshots and logos. Terrible for photographs. A photo saved as PNG can be 10-20x larger than the same photo saved as JPG. If your image is a photograph, convert it to JPG or WebP immediately.
A 6000×4000 pixel photo from a DSLR displayed at 800 pixels wide on a website is wasting 97% of its pixels. Always resize to the actual display dimensions before saving.
EXIF data, GPS coordinates, embedded thumbnails, and ICC color profiles can add 5-50 KB per image. Invisible to the viewer, but inflating your file size. Strip metadata for web images.
Many image editors default to 100% quality for JPG exports. Reducing to 85% typically cuts file size in half with zero visible difference. Use our free compressor to find the right balance.
The opposite problem: screenshots should be PNG, not JPG. JPG compression creates visible artifacts around text and UI elements. PNG keeps them crisp and is actually smaller for this type of content.