A program for compressing images without losing quality. Compress JPEG file online. Why compress photos

The operation of the resource depends on the number and size of downloaded files, therefore photo compression is one of the ways to reduce site loading time. Media content takes up most of the time it takes to form a web page, barring database connection failures or retrieving information from other domains.

To speed up work, it is recommended to analyze HTTP requests, redirects, compress scripts and styles as much as possible, reduce the number of cycles, etc. Work in this direction will give results, but the simplest and effective method– this is the compression of pictures and photographs, so let’s look at the best programs that can reduce the weight of images without significant loss of quality.

Caesium photo compression program

Caesium is great tool to reduce the size of the picture, which is quite easy to use (no specific skills required). At the same time, the program has an open source, so anyone with enough knowledge can make their own adjustments. If a person creates a good processing algorithm, the function will already be built into the program release. Given the availability of the code, the program is developing very quickly.

The application allows you to work with 3 formats - PNG, JPG, BMP. Despite the limited selection, 95% of all pictures belong to these formats. If the images are in a different format, they can always be converted to standard JPG or PNG.

A significant limitation in its work is that the utility works with PNG exclusively in 24-bit format.

To use the program, just follow the instructions:

1. Download the application;
2. Drag the pictures you plan to compress into the largest field;

1. In the “Compression Options” section, you need to move the slider to the “Quality” position if the priority is on the quality of the source image;
2. The “Output Folder” field must be filled in with the path for uploading images after processing;
3. You can start the procedure by clicking “Compress!”;

1. The scale below indicates the progress of the action;
2. When finished, you can open the processed photo.

Photo compression program FILEminimizer Pictures 3.0

The application is distinguished by a radical vision of the problem. During the compression process, most programs try to preserve quality, size, format, etc. FILEminimizer Pictures, with default settings, is able to change format, size, encoding and remove metadata. You can set a more gentle mode in the settings, although the behavior of the program cannot be changed in all respects.

The operating principle is quite standard and requires a minimum number of actions. You need to do the following:

1. Specify the original image or several;

1. Select the folder where the processed copies will be placed;
2. From below, adjust the “Compression Setting”, where there are 3 positions: Low/Print – the most low quality, Standard – average combination of quality and size, Web/E-mail – compression with minimal quality loss;

1. Customize the behavior of the program, if necessary;
2. Run the algorithm by clicking on “Optimize Files”.

As for the compression results, a test was performed, during which it was established that the size was reduced depending on the quality of the pictures and the format: PNG – 26.8% (usual result), GIF – 16.5% (good indicator), JPG for web resources – 39.3% (the best result among all studied programs). In each case, the loss of quality is visually noticeable.

FastStone Image Viewer

The variety of ways to compress photos for sending by mail can hardly be compared with FastStone Image Viewer. The program is closed source, but is developed professionally. The application is quite functional and can process images using various methods, and compression is only part of all the functions. The application is mostly used as an alternative to the standard image viewing utility.

An important advantage of the application is that it allows you to change the width and height of the photo. For the Internet and mail, this function is very important, since not all services work with multiple formats. The program also allows you to archive images so as not to clutter up your email space.

Let's look at how to use the program:

1. Download the application from the website https://www.faststone.org/;
2. After installation, you need to specify the path to the pictures using the navigation on the left. When working with a large number of them, it is recommended to create a separate folder for images to make importing easier;

1. Click on the “File” button;
2. Select “Email”;
3. In the menu that opens, you need to configure “Select size” - select the appropriate size from the drop-down list. Among auxiliary functions you can select “Add frame”, “Rename” - specify the name format. If you need to save space or traffic, you need to click “Pack to archive”;
4. Click the “Send by E-mail” button, if you need these pictures on your computer, click on “Copy to”.

ImageCompressor

Now let's look at a way to compress a photo without losing quality, or rather, with minimal and invisible loss to the eye. ImageCompressor is quite powerful, but not functional. Considering that we only need one function, the utility is quite suitable. The human eye does not perceive a decrease in quality.

To use the program you need:

1. Download and install the utility;
2. Import images; to open Explorer, click on the ellipsis key;

1. Near “Quality” there is a slider that adjusts the ratio of quality reduction and weight reduction;
2. To get a picture with the original size or, on the contrary, to make it smaller, you need to select the “Size in%” item; for full-size mode you need to set 100;
3. To select a format, you need to check the “Save as” item by highlighting the radio point next to required format JPEG or PNG;

1. Near the line just below the format selection, you need to indicate the path to the folder for recording pictures;
2. After the settings are set, you need to click on “Compress All”.

FileOptimizer

The optimal program for speeding up the loading of web pages. Everything here is done as intuitively as possible. Only a few actions are required from the user, FileOptimizer will do the rest itself.

1. Download and run the program;

1. Click on “Add files...” and select in the Explorer window necessary files for compression;
2. Click on “Optimize all files” and wait for the procedure to complete; you can monitor the process in the “Status” column.

The program also contains some settings; if you don’t want to delve into them, you can use the instructions described above. You can view the options in the “Options...” item.

Compression is performed as quickly as possible when processing the JPEG format, but the utility takes longer to process PNG. The program does not spoil the image quality, but compression occurs with a slight difference in size.

Compressing images can significantly speed up the loading process of website pages, reduce the amount of space taken up on hosting and generally optimize the resource.

If you have any questions about the topic “Review best programs to compress photos”, you can ask them in the comments

1. Install Movavi Photo Editor

Download and run installation file, following the instructions on the screen. After installation, the program will take up only 180 megabytes on your hard drive, and during operation it will not load even a weak laptop.

2. Upload the image to the program

Open the folder and drag the image into the application work area, or add files through the menu File > Open. High resolution photos may take a little longer to load.

3. Make your photo smaller

To resize the image, click the tab Size on the main toolbar. This tab is hidden by default, so click on More to access it. The panel on the right contains ready-made size reduction profiles. You can also set your own width and height of the image in the block Fit to size. Use the icon Maintain proportions to scale aspect ratios independently. To change the width and height units from pixels to percentages, centimeters, or inches, select an option from the list. Click the button Apply to accept the changes.

4. Save the picture

Large files can be made smaller by saving them in JPEG format and adjusting the image quality. Click the button Save in the lower right corner, then in the list File type select JPEG and click the link Quality. Drag the slider to the left to reduce the size of the photo. Strong compression will affect the quality of photos, so we recommend setting the quality to at least 90%. Then click the button Save.

Files smaller than 1,000 KB (about 1 MB) are suitable for sending by mail or uploading to social networks.

To speed up your site, some recommend analyzing every page: optimizing HTTP requests and any redirects, compressing scripts and styles, etc. All of this is undoubtedly necessary, but it's important to cover the basics first. In particular, are you sure that any graphics you use on the sites you create are fully optimized for the web?

Almost all web developers know that it is necessary to choose the appropriate format for each image, and also to reduce its size (both in pixels and kilobytes) to a minimum. Some even optimize JPEG settings as much as possible, balancing between size and quality. However, the harsh reality is that no matter how carefully you design your images, the regular image editors you use will not be able to save the finished files as efficiently as possible. And when images are compressed, their quality can deteriorate significantly.

It's difficult to say for sure how much quality is lost when compressing images, since it largely depends on the source of the graphics. Some JPGs can be reduced by only 50-100 bytes. Typically, normal Internet graphics need to be compressed by 10-40%, without losing image quality (this can also be done by reducing the number of colors or by transcoding JPEG files to other formats). But ideally to compress images use special programs or web services, which will be discussed in this review.

Testing

So which programs are better? To answer this, we'll look at 18 major competing programs. These are mainly image compression tools for Windows, as they are the most common. But we've also included lossy compression options, Macintosh programs, and web services, so we hope everyone will find something useful.

We tried using each program to compress the same sets of GIF, PNG, and JPG images, each of which was actually a sample of web graphics we found on a number of real sites. The programs were also checked on other points. Are they user friendly? How fast was the compression process? Reliability? Can the program, for example, increase the size of an image?

The results turned out to be very interesting, we invite you to familiarize yourself with them.

Programs

1. AdvanceCOMP 1.15

Platform: Windows

An outdated command line tool with minimal support. AdvanceCOMP is unlikely to be suitable for the average PC user accustomed to graphical interfaces. For those who are used to working with the command line, there is nothing complicated about it. So, just one line:

"for %a in ("C:\PNG File\Folder\*.png") do advpng -z -4 "%a""
allows you to apply a lossless compression algorithm to each file in a folder, replacing the original with a compressed version.

However, the results obtained turned out to be very far from ideal, and our test PNG image was compressed by only 14.2% (only one tool among the services included in the review was even worse).

2. Caesium 1.4.1

Platform: Windows

Caesium is a simple tool with open source, which is designed to compress PNG, JPG and BMP. This is a fairly easy-to-use program. Click the Add button, select images, select the folder where the processed images will be loaded - Output, click the Compress button, and in a few seconds you will get the result.

BMP compression is of no interest to us, as it is rarely used when creating websites, and there was also nothing special for us in JPG compression technology. The program does not offer lossless compression; it simply re-encodes the file at the selected quality setting.

Caesium does provide support for lossless PNG compression, although it does have some limitations. It can only output 24-bit images, otherwise it will likely increase the image size. The program's results clearly illustrate the problem, as most of our test PNG web graphics images with 48-bit color depth actually increase in size. Even with careful adjustments, the overall size of our image was reduced by only 1.2%.

3. FILEminimizer Pictures 3.0

Platform: Windows

FILEminimizer Pictures takes a more radical approach to image compression than most of its competitors. By default, when it tries to compress your photos, it may change the image format and size, re-encode JPEG files with lower quality, and strip out metadata. Most of these options can be set in the program settings.

In use, the program adheres to the generally accepted principle. Once you've given it the source file, chosen a folder for the output, and maybe configured an option or two, it only takes one click to start optimizing. This all happens fairly quickly, so you don't have to wait too long.

How good is the compression? Everything varies depending on the format, at least in our tests. PNG compression was nothing special - 26.8% (some tools do better without losing quality), GIF compression was above average - 16.5%, but our JPG web graphics were reduced in size by 39.3% - the highest compression in the study group. But in all tests the loss of quality was visually noticeable.

4. FileOptimizer 2.10.135

Platform: Windows

The capabilities of the FileOptimizer program are quite large. It not only can compress JPG, GIF and PNG images, but also can work with executable files, archives, Microsoft documents Office, PDF files, the list goes on for quite a long time.

Surprisingly, it is absolutely not difficult to use. In fact, the program has one of the simplest interfaces: drag images into FileOptimizer, click right click mouse, select Optimize - and enjoy the result. However, this simplicity also has a downside - the source files are replaced by the program. The originals are sent to the trash, so you will have to restore them (if you need them, of course).

But compression is, of course, of paramount importance, and here FileOptimizer provides good results. For example, the program reduced our test PNG graphics by 42.2% - this is the best compression without loss of quality in this group. JPEG and GIF compression were 17.7% and 15.9% higher than standard, respectively, but there are still plenty of useful options in this program that you can use with FileOptimizer to compress other files on your site.

5. ImageOptim 1.4.0

Platform: Mac

ImageOptim is a Mac tool that optimizes GIF images, JPEG and PNG, and also acts as an interface to many other applications: PNGOUT, AdvPNG, Pngcrush, extended OptiPNG, JpegOptim, jpegrescan, jpegtran and Gifsicle.

The program performs almost lossless compression: rather, comments are removed, color profiles and so on, without recoding or reducing the number of colors. ImageOptim's interface is also very user-friendly. Drag a single file, group, or folder from the necessary files, and the program immediately begins compressing each image and displaying the results. She's not the most quick tool, but even if you submit a thousand high-resolution JPEG files for processing, this is unlikely to be a problem for her.

The end results were impressive, but not exciting. Our web graphics GIFs decreased in size by 16.2%, PNGs by 17.8%, and JPGs by 18.3%. You can do better with individual tools. But if you want a simple Mac tool that can handle GIF, JPEG, and PNG files, then ImageOptim is a perfectly reasonable choice.

6. JPEG mini

Platform: Mac

JPEGmini is an interesting Mac application with a non-standard approach to reducing the JPEG format.

First, it uses an intelligent algorithm to figure out how much images can be compressed without any visible effect (that is, not just re-encoding at some fixed quality setting). The program uses its own JPEG encoder to try to produce the smallest files possible. Processing is carried out in background. Just drag and drop your photos into the program (in free version maximum 20 per day), and it will replace the originals with compressed versions.

But the range of results turned out to be huge. Our JPG picture decreased by only 8.2%, but when we sent 25 large digital photos, then they decreased by 71.3% with a slight visible loss of quality. With simple web graphics, JPEGmini doesn't do anything too surprising. It is best used for processing large-sized images.

7. jStrip 3.3

Platform: Windows

JStrip is a lossless compression tool for JPEG files that removes non-essential information: thumbnails, comments, color profiles, extra bytes at the beginning or end of the file, and various other bits and pieces. But file compression will be small, since the program does not use re-encoding. This was especially noticeable when we placed in JStrip JPG photos With high resolution, which the program was able to reduce by about 1%.

If the files you want to compress are already small, the compression will likely be much larger. When we ran our selection of JPEG web graphics through jStrip, the images shrank by an average of 16.1%. It is worth noting that the program is not stable. By default, it replaces the images you specify with compressed versions, so it's best to use copies for processing. Overall jStrip is a fast and easy way to reduce the size slightly JPEG images.

8. OptiPNG 0.7.3

Platform: Windows

OptiPNG is a popular command-line, lossless PNG compression tool that is regularly used in other programs (such as PNGGauntlet) for image processing and optimization.

The program is much better documented than many similar packages, so even if you have not worked with the command line, it will not be difficult to understand. Installation files are downloaded along with PDF file, which explains the various toggles and options, which is quite handy (though you'll still need to practice image optimization to fully understand how it works). If you want to combine several command line tools to get the best results, OptiPNG is one of them.

The results, even with the default compression settings, were quite acceptable: our test PNG web graphics were reduced in size by an average of 32.2%.

9. PNGGauntlet 3.1.2.0

Platform: Windows

PNGGauntlet is a pretty interesting tool that is essentially a wrapper around three other open source image compression programs (PNGOUT, OptiPNG, DeflOpt).

In the process of work, it acts in the same way as its competitors. Drag and drop your source images, select the output folder, click the “Optimize!” button! and wait.
It is possible that you will have to wait, and wait, and wait... Presumably this long wait is due to the fact that it combines the work of three processing tools. PNGGauntlet can be very slow, in our case it took 50 minutes 44 seconds to compress 25 high-resolution photos into PNG format.

However, the results obtained are impressive. While processing our test web graphics PNG program reduced our 50 images by an average of 41.3% and even reduced photos by 7.75% without any visible loss of quality. Sometimes this is enough to justify performance problems. So if you're looking for a quality PNG compression tool, then PNGGauntlet really needs to be on your list.

10. PNGOptimizer 2.2

Platform: Windows

With a tiny size of 146 kb, PNGOptimizer is the most lightweight program presented in this review, so it is not surprising that its interface is as simple as possible and it specializes only in PNG files.

Using PNGOptimizer 2.2 you have the ability to control a surprisingly large number of processing parameters. PNGOptimizer can remove frame interlacing, preserve, remove, or replace background color, and remove text or physical pixel dimensions from an image. The program can even import GIF, BMP and TGA files, saving them as PNG according to the selected options.

But the program was unable to beat its competitors in image compression, as can be seen from the test results. PNGOptimizer reduced high-resolution PNG photos by only 3.6% on average. She did much better with small graphic images, the average compression was 39.8%. If you need a small and simple PNG compression tool, then PNGOptimizer is the way to go.

11. PNGOUTWin 1.5.0

Platform: Windows

PNGOUT is one of the best tools to compress images. Unfortunately, it is quite inconvenient to use because it is based on command line without support batch processing. But if this is a problem for you, you can always choose its commercial interface: PNGOUTWin.

The program is easy to configure. You can use PNGOUTWin to overwrite your original images or save the output in a new folder. There are also options to save file time attributes, adjust the compression level, implement the ability to store some (or all) PNG pieces, etc.

It's also easy to use. Drag an image into the program window and it will immediately begin the compression process, using multiple threads to work on multiple images simultaneously. The results are also great, with our PNG web graphics reduced in size by 40.5% (not bad for lossless compression).

Unfortunately, the only free interface currently available is the PNGOUT interface, the same as PNGGauntlet, which is also a very easy-to-use program (in fact, you can achieve even more high level compression when combined with other tools). While PNGOUTWin is a powerful program, it's probably not worth the $14.95 (personal license) / $29.95 (enterprise license) it's asking for.

12. PUNYpng

Platform: web

Much more versatile than its name suggests is PUNYpng, a web service that can actually apply lossless compression to images in GIF format, JPG and PNG. Registration and creation account are free, but there are restrictions for free accounts: you can upload only 15 images in batch mode, each no more than 150 kb.

Overall the service is quite convenient. Click the Upload Images button on the site, and then wait while the photos are downloaded and compressed. A report of the operations performed appears, and everything can be downloaded as a ZIP archive.

For testing we used free account. PUNYpng showed good results and compressed various test sets of files by 16-32%. For $2 per month, you can upgrade your account to PRO, with which you can get additional option compression with less quality loss and download more files.

13. RIOT 0.4.6

Platform: Windows

RIOT is free, but it is one of the few programs that tries to install additional software during the setup process. Be sure to uncheck the box during installation if you are not interested in such additional software.

Everything else is very simple. The clear and intuitive interface makes it easy to compress individual GIF, PNG or JPG images and compare results, while the batch interface processes multiple files in very high speed.

Unfortunately, there is no lossless compression here. RIOT rather reduces the number of colors in the image and re-encodes it as a JPEG with a low quality value. Despite this, the program managed to make some of our test images significantly larger. Therefore, we recommend that you carefully check the output settings of RIOT before using it for processing.

The program still coped well with the task, in particular, it managed to reduce our GIF files by an average of 42.8%. But first a detailed configuration was needed - the “default” performance was much worse.

14. ScriptJPG

Platform: Windows

ScriptJPG is one of the more primitive packages, essentially just a Windows script that acts as an interface to several command line based tools. Drag and drop your JPG files into the script, select compression options (either lossless or custom JPEG quality), and ScriptJPG will shrink your images. So, at least, it was stated in the description. For some reason, the program with our JPG web graphics did not work as promised, and start menu didn't even show up.

We were able to test the package on our JPEG photo and got good results. Its lossless compression option reduced the size of our image by almost 10%. If you are a graphics professional, then ScriptJPG may be of interest to you. You'll be able to diagnose problems as they arise and possibly modify the script to adjust compression settings to suit your needs. If you prefer clearer and simpler tools, we recommend using one of the analogues with a graphical interface. There are many more powerful alternatives and, of course, they are much easier to use.

15. ScriptPNG

Platform: Windows

As you probably guessed from the name, ScriptPNG is the closest relative of ScriptJPG. It is a batch Windows file, which uses four utilities to compress PNG files to the required sizes. Also, as with ScriptJPG, there are very few customization options here. Drag the image into the file and nine open in the command line possible options compression. Select the one you need, and the program will immediately begin trimming each file in turn (and replacing the original images with the output ones, so it's best to work with copies).

Another problem we had was that after installing Starza, pngout.exe crashed. This didn't show up when we ran the script, but we had to manually close the error dialog every time it appeared. Despite this, the compression results were quite impressive. Our PNG web graphics lost up to 40.1% of their volume without any visible degradation in image quality.

16. Smush. It

Platform: web

Most web services for image compression are very limited, but Smush. It on Yahoo is a rare exception. The only limitation is the file size (no more than 1 MB), but you can upload as many images to the system as you need. There is no registration, no account creation, no daily quotas. Images are compressed using various tools, and the results can be obtained as a ZIP file.

There's just one problem with this approach - you don't have access to the compression tools themselves. You cannot customize or change them. You see the results you will get and there is nothing you can do to change them. Some problem was discovered with JPG files since Smush. It managed to reduce our test images by just 1%. PNG compression was more efficient at 35.3%, although our GIFs lost an impressive 23.9% of volume (the best lossless compression in all tests).

17.TinyPNG

Platform: web

So is Smush. It, TinyPNG is free web service, which can optimize images for you. Just drag and drop your files onto the web page, it will compress them and provide download links. The system has some disadvantages: file size limitation to 2 MB, the ability to download only 20 files at a time, and the lack of batch download capabilities.

TinyPNG also takes a clear approach to compression at the expense of quality, unlike most other tools, and overhauls its palette to reduce (sometimes significantly) the number of colors used. Unsurprisingly, it pays off when it comes to raw graphics, compressing our PNG web graphics by 48% - the best result in this test. In most cases, it was very difficult to detect any differences between the original images and the compressed versions.

By the way, the best compression rate without loss of quality among locally installed programs is 40%. So if your main priority is image quality, or you just don't want to constantly compare graphics trying to see if there's a difference, then TinyPNG might be of interest to you.

18. Trout's GIF Optimizer 2.3

Platform: Windows

Trout's GIF Optimizer is a compression tool that requires no installation. Its parameters are, of course, a little limited. As you guessed from the name, the program only performs compression GIF files, so she doesn't have any global parameters configurations of particular interest (although you can manually optimize the palette of individual images different ways).

However, Trout's GIF Optimizer is very easy to work with. Simply import your selected photos, the size reduction for each image is displayed immediately (it's very fast), and you can save them with just a few clicks. But unfortunately, the compression results weren't particularly impressive: our GIF web graphics were reduced by an average of only 16.7%.

Summary table for all tested services

Tested	Platform	Compression	PNG reduction (in%)	JPG reduction (in%)	GIF reduction (in%)
AdvanceComp 1.15	Windows	No loss of quality	-14.20%
Caesium 1.4.1	Windows		+18.7%
FILEminimizer 3.0	Windows	With loss / Without loss of quality	-26.8%	-39.3%	-16.5%
FileOptimizer 2.10.135	Windows	No loss of quality	-42.2%	-17.7%	-15.9%
ImageOptim 1.4.0	Mac	No loss of quality	-17.8%	-18.3%	-16.2%
JPEGmini Lite 1.4.1	Mac	No loss of quality		-8.2%
jStrip 3.3	Windows	No loss of quality		-16.1%
OptiPNG 0.7.3	Windows	No loss of quality	-32.3%
PNGGauntlet 3.1.2.0	Windows	No loss of quality	-41.3%
PNGOptimizer 2.2	Windows	With loss / Without loss of quality	-39.8%
PNGOutWin 1.5.0	Windows	No loss of quality	-40.5%
PUNYpng	Web	No loss of quality	-32.1%	-27.5%	-16.1%
Riot 0.4.6	Windows	With loss of quality	-21.7%	-39%	-42.8%
ScriptJPG	Windows	With loss / Without loss of quality		-10%
ScriptPNG	Windows	No loss of quality	-40.1%
Smush. It	Web	No loss of quality	-35.3%	-1%	-23.9%
Tiny PNG	Web	With loss of quality	-48%
Trout's GIF Optimizer 2.3	Windows	With loss / Without loss of quality			-16.7%

conclusions

After many hours of testing and a general breakdown of the participating programs into stages, we can conclude that image compression is truly an effective optimization tool and gives quite good results. All of our test PNG files could be reduced by 30-40%, and even JPEG files could be compressed by 16-18%. In all cases, lossless compression was used, so the image quality was not reduced, the images look exactly the same, they just load faster.

The exact results you get may, of course, vary. But if you haven't tried image compression before, it's definitely worth picking up the best of our programs and giving them a try to see what they can do for your sites.

Overall, FileOptimizer performed better than its Windows counterparts at lossless compression, delivering superior compression (up to 42.2%) on our test files. It also compresses files with the JPG and GIF extension quite well, and it also has other useful options (for example, PDF compression).

But if this program doesn't suit you for some reason, PNGGauntlet and ScriptPNG also provide good PNG compression, and ImageOptim is useful for Mac as it gives good levels of JPEG and GIF compression.

While we found web services to be less user-friendly in testing, we wouldn't rule them out entirely. PUNYpng was the best at lossless JPG compression, and Smush. It beat all the competition when it comes to GIF compression, both of which can be a big help in reducing the size of your web graphics.

Can be installed as a plugin for Chrome: goo.gl/aDSQ6, Firefox: goo.gl/mlxd0.

Good day! If you have hundreds of megabytes in a small folder with photos? Or do pictures take more than 10 minutes to be sent by mail, even with decent Internet speed? Or is it like this, does it take half an hour to send an archive of photos to a flash drive? Welcome to the right place, in the article I will tell you in which program and how to reduce the size of a JPG file without losing quality.

Compressing an image is a simple science. You can reduce all the pictures in one folder en masse, at one time, this is called batch processing. Or process each image separately. Let's talk about these methods.

How to reduce Jpg file size - a little necessary theory

Regarding the JPG format (and its variant JPEG), there are 3 ways to resize files. Size of PNG, BMP, GIF and others graphic formats can only be adjusted using the first method.

1. Reducing the image resolution (number of pixels) without losing quality;
2. Reduced quality without reducing resolution;
3. Simultaneous reduction in both resolution and quality.

Any photograph is a collection of pixels. In modern cameras their number exceeds 2-4 thousand horizontally and vertically. This is a lot, and megabytes “grow” from such a resolution. Does this improve image quality? Almost none, especially for non-professional photographers during everyday shooting. Since changing the resolution of a photo can be almost painless for quality, many people use this method to make the image smaller.

About the most convenient ways I’ll definitely tell you in a note; all you have to do is choose the one that’s right for you.

Compressing the image 2 times (by 50%, in terms graphic editors), we will reduce its area (and volume!) by 4 times, school geometry in practice.

It is logical to reduce the number of dots in order to reduce the size of the photo - and not notice any changes in quality.

An alternative option for JPG files is to leave the image resolution at its original size, but allow the computer to reduce the quality. Some blurriness, smoothing, or fuzziness is acceptable. We can assume that the compression quality in graphic editors is something like this:

• 100% — there is no compression of the picture;
• 90% — the default setting in many programs is minimal compression;
• 80% — deeper degree: files are compressed quite strongly;
• 70% — still an acceptable loss of quality, but within reason;
• 50% and below– drastic reduction appearance pattern, visible to the naked eye.

How to compress an image: workshop in graphic editors

We will experiment with this “still life”: an ordinary telephone photo that does not pretend to be artistic, rather of the “terrible to show” class, but suitable for a family archive.

Technical details: JPG format, resolution 2560 by 1920 pixels, source file weight - unacceptable 2.44 MB. Before compressing a photo, we recommend copying it to a separate folder so as not to lose the image during the compression process.

Source file: 2.44 MB, with an extension of 2560x1920 pixels

Compressing an Image in Paint

It’s in vain that this standard graphic editor included with Windows is considered a frivolous tool. Firstly, it is very interesting and useful to teach “dummies” the basics of PC literacy, and secondly, it is available everywhere and always - and when a more powerful program for working with graphics is not installed on the computer, its capabilities will come in handy more than once.

Opening the source in Paint: the number of dots is amazing, but their number does not mean beauty or quality. Scale: 100%.

To open an image in Paint, you need to right-click on the file and select "Edit".

This editor doesn't allow you to manually adjust the JPG compression level, but it feels like it sets it to around 80%. It is enough to resave the file to get 1.83 MB instead of the original 2.44 MB. By eye, the level of quality remains almost the same.

The image was compressed to 1.83 MB after resaving in Paint in 2-3 clicks and 10 seconds.

Paint has a way to reduce the pixel size of an image. This is a button "Resize". When you click it, a dialog box appears asking you to enter new horizontal/vertical dimensions as a percentage of the original number of points.

Let's choose 50 to 50: 2 times less length and width means an area 4 times less. By the way, the resolution must be changed equally in both dimensions, otherwise the picture will be deformed.

Function “Change picture resolution” standard in most graphic editors, from primitive Paint to monstrous Photoshop.

The result is 616 kilobytes. Not enough for a family archive, but great for publishing on websites. Without a magnifying glass, the difference with the source is barely noticeable.

616 kilobytes with a resolution of 1290×960 px.

Note that 0.6 megabytes was obtained not only as a result of changing the resolution, but using a “combined” method - the image size in Paint is also adjusted by reducing the JPG quality by about 85%. It is impossible to change the value of the compress parameter in the desired direction. Paint does this automatically.

Reducing Image Size in Photoshop

This powerful editor can be used for the tasks described. But it’s like transporting a bag of groceries not in a car, but calling a Kamaz. Photoshop is an overly powerful application for something as simple as reducing the weight of a photo.

Opening this program and saving the file in it will take much more time than the compression itself. However, to make our instructions complete, we will also describe how to compress an image in Photoshop.

After opening the file in Photoshop, you should select the “Image” section, click on it to the “Image Size” item. As shown in the picture below.

A dialog box will open where you can manually set the height and width of the picture. OK button – save the file. The same dialog is called hotkeys “Ctrl+Alt+I”, quick saving of the result, keyboard shortcut – “Ctrl+S”.

Second way to reduce file size pictures or photos, this is to apply quality when saving. Whatever you think is suitable for you. Let me show you with an example how to do this.

A window should open with settings for saving the image in the desired quality and format. I will continue to torture my photo with the doggies. Let me remind you that the file size is exactly 2.44 MB, let's see what we can squeeze out of it.

Choose from above - 4 options. Look at the quality changes during compression, you can move the image by previewing it.

Please note that at the top left is the Source, then they come with compression.

If you look at the second option, the quality has not changed, and the weight of the image has decreased to 1.6 MB, when choosing quality 72. A completely suitable picture for storing or sending by mail.

You can also set the image size before saving. Which you need. And click save, select the recording path and you're done.

The best compression programs. Batch Processing

Paint is always at hand, but it’s too primitive. Photoshop is excessively bulky and clumsy. What programs are best to compress JPG? Good viewers are also image managers! Their advantage is support for batch compression: simultaneous processing of all or several selected files in any folder instead of manual change drawings one at a time.

ACDSee, XnView and IrfanView: just three of the many programs for compressing images en masse. Even the thoroughly commercial ABC has a free but fully functional version. If the program is not Russified, you should remember the word Compress - “Compression”. Let's look at batch compression technology using the XnView graphic browser as an example.

Having opened one of the files in the target folder, double-click on it. A filer window will open with previews of all images.

The XnView viewer and editor says that 9 files take up almost 20 MB. Disorder!

Viewers also have the “JPEG Compression” function without reducing resolution.

Image compression in online services

Although it is convenient and correct to have a program at hand to resize a graphic file, you can use numerous online services for this task.

The principle of operation is completely similar to the work of classic PC applications: either compression, or resizing, or both actions at once. All parameters are customizable.

The disadvantage of the online method is the need to send an initially large file: this process takes some time. Web services for compression are usually free, but you also need to download the result back to your PC.

The waste of time is justified if the number of files being reduced does not exceed several pieces per month. Any specific recommendations? Please those online services which I use myself.

TinyJPG.com - Foreign service

Not a bad foreign service, without unnecessary settings. The service will do everything for you, just specify the location on your PC to download the pictures, after which the compression process will begin automatically.

I’ll warn you right away that the site has compression restrictions for unregistered users - 20 images with a maximum size of 5 MB.

Upon completion of the process, it is possible to download all files in one archive or one at a time, as is convenient for you.

IMGonline.com.ua - convenient and understandable

If you use this service, you can change the size of the image itself, as well as compress the file itself with the desired quality. I wrote about what quality is acceptable at the beginning of the article.

One of the free online services.

Both services allow you not only to play with sizes and quality, but also to edit pictures. There is a detailed reference system. Which I advise you to read before using.

In others operating systems, including mobile ones, the principles and settings of compression technologies are the same.

Processing drawings in Mac OS

Let's look at the process of working with images on a Mac, for example, it will compress images perfectly standard application“View”: there is no need to install additional software, even for batch processing. Preview on Mac knows how to resize several photos at once.

Select one or several images, open them in preview, then select Tools > Adjust Size, and fill in the required values. And save.

Conclusion

We recommend experimenting with compressing images yourself - and first copying them to a test folder so as not to lose important photos. After 3-4 attempts, you will understand in practice how to reduce the size of an image in an optimal way, with the most suitable compression, width and height parameters.

1. Install and use every day any quality manager graphic files.
2. Forget about Photoshop: it is too powerful and clumsy editor for such simple tasks.
3. Use online services only when there are no other methods at hand - and use Paint for single files.

Disclaimer: no dogs were harmed during the artistic or programming experiments. :)

Compressing images is a very important process, because ultimately it saves space on your hard drive, increases site loading speed and saves traffic. But how to make sense among the many various programs to optimize images, each of which has its own special functionality? Let's find out about the possibilities of the most popular applications to compress images.

RIOT

The program for compressing photos without loss of quality RIOT is distinguished not only by its wide functionality, in addition to file compression, which includes the ability to change their size and convert to other formats, but also by a very convenient interface. What matters is that this application supports optimization of several graphic file formats at once.

The main disadvantage of the application is the lack of a Russian-language interface.

Caesium

Another popular photo optimization program is Caesium. The main feature of this application is the high accuracy of image compression settings. This utility also has a very user-friendly graphical interface. In addition, unlike most image optimization programs, the Cesium application is Russified.

At the same time, despite the fact that this program Works with several graphic file formats; it does not support processing of all popular extensions. For example, Caesium does not work with the GIF format.

Light Image Resizer

Enough powerful program Light Image Resizer is an application for compressing and optimizing photos. The software, despite its relatively simple appearance, is a serious utility for image processing. Although image compression is the main function of this utility, it also has a number of photo editing tools. The program performs cropping, applying effects, reducing the physical size of the image, converting to various formats. The domestic user will like the fact that the Light Image Resizer utility is completely Russified.

This application does not have any significant drawbacks. Is it possible to take as a disadvantage the fact that this program is one of the few described in this review that has a shareware license. That is, you will have to pay for its continued use.

Advanced JPEG Compressor

Unlike previous applications, the Advanced JPEG Compressor program does not specialize in compressing several types of graphic files, but is concentrated on working with one format - JPEG. She is considered one of best utilities to optimize files with this extension, providing high compression and compression speed. In addition to this primary task, the program has an image editing function, including using a convenient graphic equalizer. It is capable of converting a range of popular image formats into JPEG files. In addition, JPEG images are converted back to BMP format.

But, official version This program, unfortunately, is not Russified. In addition, the functionality of the free version, which can be used for a short period of time, is very limited.

PNGGauntlet

A similar version of the previous program, only specializing in compressing images in PNG format, is the PNGGauntlet utility. Thanks to the built-in tools PNGOUT, OptiPNG, Defl Opt, this program compresses photos very well of this format. In addition, it converts a range of image formats to PNG images.

But, unfortunately, the overall functionality of this program is quite limited, and it does not have more features than those listed above. In addition, the application is not Russified.

OptiPNG

The OptiPNG application, like the previous one, is also designed to compress images in PNG format. Moreover, it is included as a component in the PNGGauntlet program, but can also be used separately, providing high quality compression of this type files. In addition, it is possible to convert a number of graphic formats to PNG format.

But it is worth noting that a significant inconvenience of this program is the lack GUI, since it works through the command line console.

Jpegoptim

An analogue of the OptiPNG program, only intended for processing files in the JPEG format, is the Jpegoptim utility, which also works from the command line console and does not have a graphical interface. But, despite this, it is considered one of the best in terms of compression of JPEG images and speed of working with them.

But, unlike OptiPNG, this application does not have the ability to convert images of other formats into the format in which it specializes (JPEG), that is, it is even more functionally limited.

FileOptimizer

Unlike the previous program, FileOptimizer does not focus on working with just one type of file. Moreover, it is capable of compressing not only images, but also videos, audio, documents, programs, etc. The list of file formats that FileOptimizer can optimize is simply impressive. But, despite its “omnivorous” nature, the program is very easy to use.

At the same time, it should be noted that a side effect of the versatility of this program is its relatively weak capabilities for working with files in graphic formats. For example, unlike most image compression programs, it cannot even perform basic image editing.

Faststone Image Viewer

Unlike the previous utility, the program Faststone Image Viewer is just a comprehensive application for working with images, and compressing photos is far from its main function. This program is, first of all, powerful viewer and an image editor that works with a huge number of graphic formats.

It should be noted that this application is irrational to use if you plan to use it only as a tool for compressing photos. This is due to the fact that the own weight Faststone programs Image Viewer is quite large, and managing the compression process is complicated by the oversaturated functionality of the utility.

As you can see, the variety of programs for compressing and optimizing images is quite large. They can specialize in a particular photo format, or support the ability to work with multiple image formats, and even with completely different types of data. These utilities can have only one function - image compression, or they can be very multifunctional, and file compression may not be their main task. In general, users have the opportunity to choose exactly the photo compression application that suits them best.