It is essential for the site visitor that the posted photos are of good quality. This requirement applies to a blog, a page on a social network, and an online store. The resource owner must know how to resize the image correctly to maintain its quality and not spoil the impression of the image for visitors.
Posting the original photo on the site may cause problems with the download. High-resolution photos are usually large. It will take considerably longer for them to load on the site. Below, we will explain how to compress an image.
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Why is It Essential to Compress Images but Maintain Quality?
Let’s give a simple example – in front of the user, there are two sites of online stores that sell the same goods. One site contains high-quality pictures of the products offered. In another store, the user sees distorted and blurry images. Obviously, the person decides to buy the item from the first seller.
Images that are correctly formatted and do not suffer from any loss of quality increase consumer confidence. When viewing such pictures, there is a feeling of professionalism and responsibility for the seller. It becomes clear to the buyer that the company owner is interested in his work. A site with low-quality pictures suggests that the seller does not care about buyers.
Simply uploading high-quality original photos onto the site will not be required. These pictures are often oversized and large. They can affect the performance of the site. Also, large pictures are not always displayed correctly in the browser. It can lead to the mixing of elements.
Large photos also hurt site loading speed. If you fit a 2000×2000-pixel image into a 200×200-pixel area, the browser will continue processing each pixel. If you crop an image to the specified size, it will load 10 times faster.
There are no generally accepted parameters for the size and quality of photographs posted on the Internet. In this case, it all depends on several factors:
- Which website hosted the images;
- Why resizing is needed (sometimes resizing with deterioration in quality is necessary to prevent theft of images when they are sold);
- From which device do visitors most often view your site (mobile or desktop browser).
The owner of the picture needs to follow one rule – to find a balance between the quality and size of the photo.
Why Do You Need to Compress an Image?
Reducing the image size is most often required in the following cases:
- Acceleration of page loading speed in the browser. Users should see beautiful pictures and immediately download them for several minutes.
- Allocation of additional space in the memory of a smartphone or tablet. Storing compressed images without a quality loss will free up to 80% of memory.
- Quickly share pictures via email, social media, and more.
Essential Ways to Reduce the Size of a Picture
There are several options for reducing the size of a particular photo:
- Choosing the correct picture format. All images are divided into vector and raster. Vector graphics are distributed in SVG, EPS, and PDF formats; GIF, PNG, and JPEG formats are often used for raster graphics.
- Resizing the photo according to the requests of the site. Using special tools, you can place scaled photos on the site. If necessary, the user will be able to access the original image.
- Image compression. It is one of the best ways to maintain picture quality while resizing. Let’s talk about it a little more.
How Does Image Compression Work
Particular services compress images without losing quality. In some cases, processing can be done using built-in Windows tools. Most frequently, you can process photos in any of the popular formats.
Sometimes you can reduce the size without losing quality. Services analyze a specific picture and remove all unnecessary information that affects the size — for example, metadata. Digital cameras often write image metadata. This information is beneficial not only for photo size but also for security. The photo quality, in this case, does not suffer. It is impossible to detect differences when comparing the original and the processed photo.
The peculiarity of image processing depends on how much you need to reduce the size. It can be a priority of size, quality, or simply formatting for specific parameters set. Remember that for the client, speed is essential, but he doesn’t want to see low-quality or blurry pictures.
