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How to Optimize Images for web performance without Losing Quality
Did you know that optimizing your images before uploading to WordPress can have a huge impact on speed of your website?
When beginning a new blog many new bloggers upload images without optimizing them for web. These huge image files make your website slow.
This can be fixed by using optimization of images. optimization best practices as part of your routine blogging routine.
In this article in this article, we will show you how to optimize your images for speedier website performance, without sacrificing quality. We will also discuss automatic optimization plugins for images. optimization plug-ins designed for WordPress which can make your life easy.
As this is a comprehensive guide to image optimization for the web, we have created an easy to follow table of contents:
- What's the definition of image optimization? (optimized vs unoptimized images)
- Why is image optimization important? What are the benefits?
- How can you save and optimize images to improve web performance?
- Best image optimization tools and software
- Best Images optimization tools for WordPress
What is Image Optimization? (Optimized vs Unoptimized Images)
Image optimization is the process of saving and delivering images with the smallest file size without reducing the overall image quality.
Although the procedure sounds complicated the process is actually fairly easy today. You can use one of the many image optimization applications and tools that instantly compress images up to 80% with any noticeable reduction in image quality.
Here's an example of an optimized contrasted with unoptimized images:
This is what you will see. when optimized properly , the same image can be 75 percent smaller than the original without any degradation in quality.
What is Image Optimization function?
In simple words images optimization use compression technologies such as "Lossy" and "Lossless" which reduces the overall file size without any noticeable loss of quality.
What is it to optimize Images?
If you've ever been given an order to optimize your photos by your WordPress hosting provider or an automated speed test tool what it all means is that you have to decrease the file size of your images by optimizing them for the web.
Why is Image Optimization Important? What are the Benefits of Image Optimization?
While there are many benefits of optimizing your images, here are the top ones you need to know:
- Faster speed of website
- Improvements in SEO rankings
- The higher conversion rate overall for leads and sales
- Storage and bandwidth are reduced (which will reduce hosting and CDN cost)
- Faster backups to websites (also decreases the cost of backup storage)
Other than video, images represent the next biggest weight on a web page. The HTTP archive says that according to HTTP archive, images make up an average of 21% of the total weight of a website's.
As we have seen that faster websites rank higher in search engines (SEO) and achieve higher conversions which is why image optimization is something that each business website has to take care of in order to grow online.
You might be thinking how big of a difference does image optimization really create?
According to the findings of a Strangeloop study, a one second delay in website load time will cost you 7% on sales. That's 11% fewer pageviews, as well as a 16% reduction in satisfaction of customers.
If these aren't enough reasons to speed up your website and increase your traffic, you must know that search engines like Google also offer preferential SEO treatment to faster-loading websites.
By optimizing your web-friendly images, you can both improve speed of your site as well as increase WordPress SEO rankings.
Video Tutorial
If you'd prefer written instructions, just keep reading.
How to Save and Optimize Images for Web Performance?
The most important factor in successful image optimization on the web is to find the perfect balance between the most compact file size and acceptable quality of the image.
Three things that play a huge influence on images optimization are:
- Image file format (JPEG vs PNG vs GIF vs tiff )
- Compression (Higher compression = smaller file size)
- Image Dimensions (height and width)
By choosing the most appropriate combination of the three, you can reduce your image's dimensions by up to 80%.
Let's examine each of them in greater specifics.
- Image File Format
For the majority of webmasters, the only three image formats that truly should be considered include JPEG, PNG, and GIF. Picking the right type of file is crucial for image optimization.
To simplify things, you want to use JPEGs when you want to use images or photos with lots of colors. PNGs for basic images or when you require transparent images, and GIF to only use animated images.
For those who don't know the differences between each file type, the image format PNG is not compressed, which means that it's an image of higher quality. image. The downside is that file sizes are much larger.
However, JPEG is a compressed file format , which can slightly diminish the image quality to make it much smaller file size.
In contrast, GIF only supports 256 colors along with lossless compression which makes it the best option for animated images.
On WPBeginner we make use of all three image formats , based on the kind of image.
2. Compression
The next thing is image compression, which plays an enormous part when it comes to image optimization.
There are a variety of types and levels of image compression that are available. The settings for each depend on the image compression tool you choose to use.
A majority of image editing tools, such as Adobe Photoshop, On1 Photo, GIMP, Affinity Photo and others include built-in features to compress images.
You are also able to save images and then use a web application like TinyPNG and JPEG Mini for easier image compression.
Though it's a little manual These two methods permit users to compress images before uploading them to WordPress, and this is what we do on WPBeginner.
There are also many popular WordPress plugins like Optimole, EWWW Image Optimizer and others that automatically compress images once you upload them. A lot of novices and even big companies choose to utilize these image optimization plugins since it's simple and simple.
We'll talk more about these WordPress plugins later in the article.
3. Image Dimensions
Normally, when you transfer a photo from your phone or a digital camera, it comes with an extremely high resolution and enormous file dimensions (height as well as width).
In general, these photos have an average resolution of 300 DPI and sizes ranging from 2000 pixels and more. High-quality images are ideal for desktop or print printing. They are not suitable for use on websites.
A reduction in file dimensions to something less limiting can drastically reduce the size of the file. You can easily resize images with the software for editing images on your personal computer.
As an example, we have optimized an image to have 1.8 MB original file size With a 300 DPI resolution, and dimensions of 4900x3200 pixels.
We opted for the Jpeg format to allow more compression. We changed the dimensions to 1200x795 pixels. In addition, it reduced the image file size to 103KB. That's 94% less than the size of the original file.
Once you've mastered the three essential elements of image optimization, let's take a look at different images optimization tools for owners of websites.
Best ImageOptimization Tools and Programs
We mentioned it earlier that most image editing software come that have image optimization in addition to compression adjustments.
Beyond the editing software for images, there are other powerful free image optimization tools that you could employ to optimize your images for web (with just a few clicks).
We suggest using these tools to boost the quality of your images before uploading them to WordPress particularly if are an obsessive.
This method helps you save storage space in your WordPress hosting account and also guarantees the fastest image with the top quality, as you manually scrutinize every image.
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a premium software with a feature that lets you save images that are optimized for web use. Simply open your photo and click on"File" and then select the "File >> Save for Web" option.
The new dialog box. On the rightside, you will be able to set various image formats. For JPEG format, you will get a range of quality options. If you choose your preferred options it will also give you the size of the image in the lower left.
GIMP
GIMP is a free and open source alternative to popular Adobe Photoshop. It is a tool to help you optimize your images for web use. The disadvantage is that it is not as easy to use as the other options listed on this list.
First, you need to open your image within GIMP and then select File > Export to option. This will bring up the dialog box for saving your file. Make sure to give the file a different name and then hit an export option.
This will present options to export images. If you are using JPEG files, you can choose the compression option to reduce the size of the file. Finally, click on"export" to save your optimized file.
TinyPNG
TinyPNG is a no-cost web application that utilizes a lossy compression method to reduce sizes of PNG files. All you need to do is visit their site and upload your photos (simple drag and drop).
They will compress the image and give you a download link. You can also use their sister webpage, TinyJPG and TinyJPG for JPEG images.
There is also an extension for Adobe Photoshop which we use for our editing process for images because it is a blend of TinyJPG and TinyPNG in Photoshop.
For developers, they've got an API that can convert images automatically. For those who are new to the field, they offer the WordPress plugin that can accomplish the task (more on this in the future).
JPEG Mini
JPEGmini is a lossless compression technology which significantly reduces the size of images while not affecting their perceptual quality. You may also assess the quality of your original image and the compressed image.
You can use their web version for free or buy the program for your computer. Additionally, they offer a paid API that allows you to automate the process in your website's server.
ImageOptim
ImageOptim is an Mac tool that lets you for compression without sacrificing any quality. It does this by finding the best compression parameters and eliminating color profiles that are not needed.
Windows Alternate to this Trimage.
Best Image Optimization Plugins for WordPress
We believe that the most efficient way to optimize your images is to optimize them prior to uploading them to WordPress. If, however, you operate an author-based site or require an automatized solution then you could consider using the WordPress plugin for image compression.
Below is a list of the top WordPress photo compression plug-ins.
- Optimole is a well-known plugin created by the people behind ThemeIsle.
- EWWW Image Optimizer
- Compress JPEG & PNG images with the plugin created by the TinyPNG team as mentioned above in the article.
- Imagify - a plugin created by the popular WP Rocket plugin team.
- ShortPixel Image Optimizer
- WP Smush
- reSmush.it
Utilizing one among these WordPress image optimization plugins can improve the speed of your website.
Final Thoughts and Best Practices for Image Optimization
If you're not saving images optimized for the web, you should begin doing this right now. It's going to make a big difference in your site's speed as well as your customers will appreciate it.
In addition, faster websites are ideal for SEO and you'll likely see an increase in the rankings of your search engines.
Make use of this tool convert to png
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