9 Best Ways to Reduce Image Size Without Losing Quality
Image is the most crucial visual element on your website. But it takes up a lot of room and adds weight to your website.
Thus, that extra load of weight may slow your WordPress website.
Likewise, the WordPress CMS is built for users who want a cleaner and better website. Thus, a combination of website speed and visuals improves user experience.
So, you can reduce image size without losing quality to maintain the speed and visual up to the mark of your site.
In this article, we’ll go over some of the best ways to reduce image size without losing quality on your WordPress website.
Why Should You Reduce Image Size?
Large images require large files. And these bigger file sizes take longer to load. So, the WordPress image size significantly impacts page loading and website performance.
The bounce rate is linked to how fast a page loads. It grows if the performance is poor. The bounce rate ratio for a 1s load is 7%, 11% for a 3s load, and 38% for a 5s load.
70% of consumers say page speed affects their purchase decision, according to Unbounce. If the loading time is longer, the customer becomes irritated and leaves. Also, over 45% of online shoppers are less likely to buy from eCommerce stores that take longer than expected to load.
Moreover, Google’s ranking algorithm weighs page loading speed, which affects SERP rankings. So, reducing image size will also help your SEO performance.
Why Is It Important to Reduce Image Size Without Losing Quality?
Reducing image size on your website helps you in many ways, from speeding up your WordPress website and enhancing the SERP ranking to making a responsive business website.
Likewise, a small image file is ideal for page loading. However, it’s not always beneficial. Sometimes, image quality takes priority over file size.
Source cat Image: 3.81 MB before compression
After reducing image size without losing quality: 68.9 KB
You need to preserve the image quality in applications like archiving historical images, medical imaging, and technical documentation. Image quality is also essential for eCommerce product images. Low product image quality will lower conversion rates.
According to an Emarketer study, many consumers say product image quality influences purchasing decisions. It’s evident since you need a clear picture of what you want to buy.
The Best Practices to Reduce Image Size Without Losing Quality
Compressing an image reduces its quality. Then why compress an image if it loses quality?
Here are some ways to reduce image size without losing quality. Resize images to standard dimensions. Since not all devices load full-size images, your images don’t need to be large.
For instance, a 2400×1800 website image loads at 1200×630 on a mobile device. Therefore, your website doesn’t need a 2400×1800 image.
You can use a standard image size for all devices. Most devices support image sizes ranging from 600 to 1200 pixels without affecting image quality.
Moreover, you can reduce image size to 100KB. 600–1200 pixel images fit in 100kb. So it won’t reduce image quality or file size.
Reduce Image Size Without Losing Quality Using Photoshop
Photoshop is arguably the most popular image editing software. It’s also great for reducing image size without sacrificing image quality.
Here’s a step-by-step guide for reducing image size without losing quality using Photoshop:
Step 1: Start Photoshop and open the image to resize.
Step 2: Now, navigate to Image > Image Size in the top menu.
Step 3: Choose the image’s Dimension, Width, Height, and Resolution from the predefined options. You can also customize the height and width of your image.
Step 4: Uncheck the Resample box. Photoshop won’t change image pixels after resizing if you uncheck Resample. Thus, the image quality will not change during resizing.
Step 5: Click OK to reduce image size without losing quality in Photoshop.
Reduce Image Size Without Losing Quality Online Tools
In this age of SaaS, installing and using a tool on a computer has become old school. You can easily search for and use an online tool to resize your image. Here are some great tools you can try:
ShortPixel Optimizer
ShortPixel is the best image optimization tool. It lets you reduce image size by 90%. It also allows you to reduce image size without losing quality. Its lossless compression method reduces image size without losing image quality.
Step 1: Navigate to the Shortpixel Image Compression tool. Select Lossless as the image compression method.
Step 2: Now, Drag and drop or select the image you want to compress into the compression area.
You can compress multiple files simultaneously, but it must be at most 10 MB. Once compression is done, you can look at the percentage of reduction.
Step 3: Click on the Download button to save the compressed image.
Adobe Express
Adobe offers a free online image-resizing tool called Adobe Express. It supports popular image formats, including PNG, while maintaining image quality. Adobe Express also includes options for optimizing social media post dimensions and making it easy for users to adjust their images for different platforms.
Reduce Image Size Without Losing Quality on Mac
Mac’s built-in image viewer Preview is the best way to resize an image. It allows you to reduce an image without sacrificing quality. Let’s look at how to use Mac Preview to reduce image size without losing quality.
Step 1: Open the image you want to reduce size with Mac Preview.
Step 2: Next, click on the Tools. Then, click on the Adjust size.
Step 3: It will open the Image Dimensions menu. You’ll find some useful options for resizing images there. Options such as Fit into to set predefined dimensions, Pixels to set up pixels, Resolution to set Resolution, and Resulting Size show the change percentages and output image size. Select your preferred image Width, Height, and Pixels to reduce size.
Step 4: Click OK to save your changes, provide a name for your image file, and click Save. And now you’re done with reducing image size without losing quality on Mac.
Reduce Image Size Without Losing Quality on Linux
Here is how to reduce image size on Linux Debian/Ubuntu using the command line without losing quality.
Step 1: Install ImageMagick
Install ImageMagick and update your package repository in a terminal:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install imagemagick -y
Step 2: Get image dimensions
To get the width and height of the image, use the identify command as follows:
For JPEG:
identify -format "%wx%h" image.jpg
For PNG:
convert input.png -strip output.png
Step 3: Resize the image
To resize the image while maintaining the aspect ratio, but ensuring it fits within a specific size, use the convert command like this:
convert image.jpg -resize 600x400\> resized_image.jpg
Step 4: Verify the resized image
You can use the identify command again to verify that the image has been resized correctly:
identify -format "%wx%h" resized_image.jpg
With these steps, you’ll be able to effectively reduce images using the command line in Linux while maintaining the visual quality of the photos.
Reduce Image Size Without Losing Quality on Android
There are so many Android apps to resize images on Android devices. Let’s talk about Photo and Picture Resizer, an APP that will give you both usability and efficiency.
Here is how to reduce image size without losing quality on Android using an Android app:
Step 1: Install and open the Photo & Picture Resizer App
First, install and launch the Photo & Picture Resizer app on your Android device.
Step 2: Select the Photo to Resize
Click Select Photos in the app. Choose the photo to resize from your gallery or file system. The image and its original dimensions will appear after selection.
Step 3: Access the Resize Option
Look for and select the Resize option in the app’s interface. This action will bring up the Select Dimension window.
Step 4: Choose the Resizing Dimensions
In the Select Dimension window, preset dimensions include 800×600, 1024×768, 1280×960, 1600×1200, and more. You can also manually select the Custom Size option to enter your desired width and height.
Select your preferred dimension, and the image will be resized and saved. Click on the resized image to view the before and after sizes.
Reduce Image Size Without Losing Quality on iOS
iOS was one of the most challenging systems to use for tasks like compressing or reducing the size of an image. iOS primarily focuses on beautification-type edits. iOS prioritizes image size and quality.
However, some apps now allow you to reduce the size of your image as much as you want. Besides, It also allows you to reduce the image size without losing quality. Here’s how to do it:
Step 1: Download and install the Compress Photos & Pictures app.
Step 2: Launch the app and click on Select Photos to Compress.
Step 3: You’ll find two options: Photo Quality and Photo Dimensions for your photo.
Step 4: Pick the suitable quality and dimension you want from the image compressor tool.
Step 5: There, you’ll find the final button showing you the Compress button. Hit it.
Ste 6: It will show you the final size and the saved space. Please select whether you want to keep the original files or delete them.
Reduce Image Size Without Losing Quality Using WordPress Plugins
So many tools can resize images. You can use a tool to optimize multiple images.
WordPress plugins are the best option. You can use the ShortPixel WordPress plugin to reduce image size without losing quality.
Here’s how to do it:
Step 1: Please install and activate the ShortPixel Image Optimizer plugin from the WordPress plugin directory or download it from the ShortPixel website.
Step 2: Sign up for a free account on the ShortPixel website, access the API Key section, copy the API key, and activate it within the plugin settings.
Reduce Image Size to 100kb Without Losing Quality
It is hard to reduce the size of an image to 100kb without losing quality, but it is possible with the Squoosh tool. Here’s how:
Step 1: Open Squoosh in your web browser. Please copy and paste your image into the designated area or drag and drop it there. Alternatively, you can click the image icon to upload it from your device.
Step 2: Toggle the resize icon on the menu bar. This will reveal a dropdown menu where you can adjust the pixel width and height of the image.
Step 3: Open the compression options dropdown menu under Compress. You’ll find various options, but three common ones are:
- MozJPEG: Suitable for compressing JPEG images, best for detailed images like photographs. It’s a lossy format that removes some data permanently from the image.
- OxiPNG: Used for compressing PNG images, better for graphics and illustrations with lower detail. PNG is a lossless format, preserving all data during compression.
- WebP: A newer format developed by Google, aiming for smaller sizes than JPG and PNG while retaining quality.
Step 4: Once you’ve adjusted the dimensions and compressed the image to under 100KB, click the download icon in the bottom right corner of the page to save your compressed image.
Reduce Image Size Without Losing Quality using Chrome Extensions
Chrome extensions can reduce image size without losing quality. You can use Chrome extensions to reduce image sizes while maintaining quality quickly.
You can try the following Chrome extensions:
Resizing App: Resizing App is the most effective Chrome extension for decreasing image size without sacrificing quality. With this extension, you can reduce image quality in a matter of clicks.
- Click on the extension,
- Upload the image
- Image size will be reduced without quality loss.
Bulk Image Resize: Bulk Image Resize Chrome extension reduces image size without compromising quality while bulking up. It allows you to get multiple sizes of an image with a single click.
Summary
Every website on the internet is filled with images. The better your image compression, the less space you’ll need. And the faster your website will perform.
Most methods to reduce image size without losing quality work flawlessly. Each has a preferred use case. It would be best if you first specified what you require.
If you only need to resize a few images, use a tool like ShortPixel or Photoshop. Or, if you need to resize photos on a large website, such as an eCommerce site, you can use the ShortPixel plugin.
It’s totally up to you how much work you put into this.
How do you like these image size reduction methods? Is there anything else we missed? Leave comments on your best ways to reduce image size without losing quality and thoughts.
