How to optimize images for Joomla websites
Do you have a Joomla site (why is Joomla popular?) and want to optimize its images? ShortPixel Website Optimizer compresses images for sites built with different CMSs than WordPress. We will show you in this article how to optimize images for Joomla websites.
ShortPixel is an online service who optimizes your images in the cloud, and replaces the original files with their compressed versions. In order to use this service you need a ShortPixel API key. It links your account with our image optimization service. Just sign-up here (it only takes 10 seconds!) and you will get a monthly plan with 100 free credits.
Read more about how Shortpixel credits work.
1. ShortPixel Website Optimizer Installation
Download the archive from the Website Optimizer page, unzip it to your Joomla installation, and check that shortpixel-web folder has the right permissions! For Linux servers run this command:
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data shortpixel-web
You are ready to test if the ShortPixel Website Optimizer installation is successful. Type in your Browser address bar:
http://[[your.website.domain]]/shortpixel-web/webroot/index.php
Our tool interface looks like this:
Validate the API key to finish the installation. If you happen to encounter any issue don’t despair! 🙂 Just contact our friendly support team.
2. ShortPixel Website Optimizer Settings
First step is to choose the folder where your images are stored.
Our tool guesses the base URL of your images, but we recommend you to check if it is correct by typing the address of one of your images in the browser address bar, something like this:
http://your-joomla-site.com/images/YourImages/picture-name.jpg
ShortPixel settings explained
Check if the default settings are good for you before starting the optimization process. An important feature is the Backup Image. Don’t forget to set it up!
Optimization method
You can choose between two optimization methods: Lossless or Lossy. There are a very few situations when you need lossless optimization.
By default, ShortPixel eliminates the images metadata, and it converts CMYK profile to RGB. You can choose to opt-out for these transformations.
ShortPixel can freely generate WebP versions of your images, but you will need to find a way to deploy WebP files for the compatible browsers. If you don’t know what WebP files are you could read some if here, here and here.
If you believe that WebP images could be useful for you, then check this option:
Resizing large images is a way to speed-up your site and reduce your hosting storage. Keep in mind the ShortPixel keeps the aspect ratio of the images.
The last fields are also important, and we advice you to pay attention to them. At first, you can choose a folder to exclude from optimization. Assuming that inside Your Images folder there is another folder (or folders) which don’t need image compression, here is where you tell ShortPixel to skip it.
Note: This field is case sensitive.
The last field is for setting the location of your backups. If you don’t select a folder, you will not be able to restore the originals if the compressed images don’t suit your needs or taste.
We recommend you to choose the folder where your images are stored. ShortPixel will create a backup folder there called ShortPixelBackups. This way, you can restore your images by simply copying the originals back in Your Images folder.
3. ShortPixel Website Optimizer process
Now you are ready to click Optimize now button and start the Bulk processor.
The bulk processor works if you don’t close the browser tab. If you accidentally did it, then no biggie, just re-open the Website Optimizer page:
http://[[your.website.domain]]/shortpixel-web/webroot/index.php
After the optimization is done you will get a page with an optimization summary, but if you want a more detailed report go to your ShortPixel account and download the full Optimization Report where you will find all images you optimized in the last 40 days.
If you add new images in your folder, then restarting the Website Optimizer is all you need to do for compressing them too.
4. ShortPixel Website Optimizer tips
As we told you above, you can secure your Website Optimizer installation by changing its default folder name from shortpixel-web to something else.
Moreover, we recommend you to add basic authentication to ShortPixel folder. For the most cases, it is enough to read and apply the method described here: https://wiki.apache.org/httpd/PasswordBasicAuth
You could optimize the images within your templates folder simply by choosing the right folder as we did above with our directory called Your Images. Remember to also set the backup folder.
So, if you are ready to test ShortPixel on your Joomla site get Website Optimizer and sign-up for a free account!
