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How to Optimize Imagesfor Web Performance without Losing Quality

Did you know that optimizing your images prior to uploading to WordPress will have a huge impact on speed of your website?

When you start a new blog many novices upload pictures without optimizing them for the web. The large images make your site slow.

You can fix this by using photo optimizationbest methods as part of your routine blogging routine.

Within this article In this article, we will show you how to optimize your images for speedier websites without sacrificing quality. We will also provide automatic image optimization plug-ins designed for WordPress which can make your life easier.

As this is a comprehensive guide on image optimization for web we've created an easy-to-follow table of contents:

• What's the definition of image optimization? (optimized images vs. images that aren't optimized)
• What makes image optimization important? What are the benefits?
• How do you save and optimize images to improve web performance?
• The best image optimization software and tools
• The top image optimization plugins for WordPress

What is Image Optimization? (Optimized vs Unoptimized Images)

Image optimization is the process that saves and delivers images with the smallest file size without reducing the quality of the image overall.

Although the process might sound complex, it's actually quite easy these days. You can utilize one of the numerous image optimization tools and plugins to instantly compress images at least 80% without any visible diminution in quality.

Here's a good example of an optimized against unoptimized image

You can observe, if optimized correctly, the same image can be 75 percent smaller than the original , without the loss of quality.

How does Image Optimization work?

In simple words simply put, image optimization work by using compression technology such as "Lossy" and "Lossless" which helps reduce the overall size of the file, without noticeable reduction in quality.

What is it to optimize Images?

If you ever received a recommendation to optimize images from your WordPress hosting service or the speed test tool, the only thing it suggests is that you should reduce the size of your photos by optimizing them to be used on the web.

Why is Image Optimization Important? What are the Benefits of Image Optimization?

While there are many benefits of optimizing your pictures, these are the top benefits you need to know:

• Speedier website loading
• Increased SEO rankings
• The higher conversion rate overall for leads and sales
• Storage and bandwidth are reduced (which can reduce hosting and CDN cost)
• More efficient backups for websites (also reduces the cost for backup storage)

Beyond video, pictures are the second most hefty item on a website. The HTTP archive says that according to HTTP archive pictures account for an average of 21% of a total webpage's weight.

Because we know that fast websites rank higher in search engines (SEO) and also have higher conversion rates which is why image optimization is a requirement for every website needs to do in order to grow online.

Now , you might be wondering how much difference can image optimization can really impact?

According to the findings of a Strangeloop study, one-second delay in website loading could result in a loss of 7% in sales. It also results in 11% less pageviews, and 16% reduction in customer satisfaction.

If these aren't enough reasons to speed up the loading time of your site You should be aware that search engines like Google also offer preferential SEO treatment to faster loading websites.

This means that by optimizing your images for web, you can both improve the speed of your website and 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 an effective picture optimization that is optimized for performance on websites is to find the best balance between lowest file size and acceptable image quality.

Three factors which play a major part in the process of image optimization are:

• Image file format (JPEG vs PNG vs GIF vs tiff )
• Compression (Higher compression = smaller file size)
• Image Dimensions (height and width)

If you select the most appropriate combination of the three you can decrease your image's size up to 80 percent.

Let's look at each of these in more details.

1. Image File Format

For the majority of webmasters, the only three image formats that truly count is JPEG, PNG, and GIF. Choosing the right file type is crucial in image optimization.

To make things easy In order to keep things simple, use JPEGs for photos or images with lots of colors, PNGs to create simple images, or for transparent images. You can also use GIF for animated images only.

For those who aren't sure of what the distinction is between each kind, the PNG format is uncompressed which means it's a superior quality image. The disadvantage is that it's file sizes are significantly larger.

However, JPEG is a compressed file format , which can slightly diminish image quality to provide a significantly smaller size file.

While GIF is limited to 256 colors as well as lossless compression that means it is the best choice in animated image.

On WPBeginner We use all three image formats based on the kind of image.

2. Compression

The next thing is image compression, which plays an enormous part on image optimization.

There are a variety of types and levels of compression that are available. Settings for every will differ depending on the compression tool that you use.

A majority of image editing tools, such as Adobe Photoshop, On1 Photo, GIMP, Affinity Photo and more come with built-in compression tools for images.

You may also save images by default but then you can use a Web application like TinyPNG and JPEG Mini for easier image compression.

While it's somewhat manual, these two methods allow you to compress images prior to uploading the images to WordPress as well, which is what we do with WPBeginner.

There are many well-known WordPress plugins like Optimole, EWWW Image Optimizer and others that automatically compress images after you first upload them. Many novices and even huge corporations use these image optimization plugins because it's easy to use and is convenient.

We will share more about these WordPress plugins later in this article.

3. Image Dimensions

Normally when you download a photograph from your phone or a digital camera, it is an extremely high resolution and massive file dimensions (height and wide).

Typically, these photos come with resolutions of 300 DPI with dimensions starting from 2000 pixels and even more. These high-quality photos are well-suited to print or desktop publishing. These images are not appropriate for websites.

Reduced file size to something acceptable can dramatically reduce the size of images. It is easy to resize images by using an image editing program on your computer.

We optimized, for instance, photos with 1.8 Megabytes as its original file size With a 300 DPI resolution, and image dimensions of 4900x3200 pixels.

We went with the JPEG format for larger compression. The dimensions were changed to 1200x795 inches, and it reduced the image's size to 103KB. This is 94% smaller than the size of the original file.

After you have a better understanding of the three main factors involved in image optimization Let's take a look at the various image optimization tools available to website owners.

Best ImageOptimization Tools and Programs

As we've mentioned before, most image editing software come equipped with photo optimization or compression setting.

In addition to the software for editing images, there are numerous useful and powerful image optimization tools you can utilize to make your images more attractive for the web (with just few clicks).

We recommend making use of these software tools to optimize images before you upload them to WordPress particularly if are one of those people who are always perfect.

This strategy helps you save the disk space of your WordPress hosting account and also guarantees speedy images with highest quality as you manually check every image.

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is a premium software that comes with the option of saving images designed specifically for the web. Just open the image in Photoshop and select"File > Save to Web" "File >> Save for Web" option.

This will open up a new dialog box. On the rightside, you can select different image formats. If you select JPEG format, you will be presented with a variety options regarding quality. When you select your options the program will indicate the file's dimensions in the lower left.

GIMP

GIMP is a free and open-source alternative to the popular Adobe Photoshop. It can be used to optimize your images for use on the internet. However, it's not as simple to use as some of the other methods on this list.

The first step is to open your image in GIMP and then choose File >> Export as option. This will bring up the save file dialog box. Change the file's name and then hit the export button.

It will open options to export images. For jpeg files, you can choose the compression level in order to reduce the size of the file. After that, press"export" to save your optimized file.

TinyPNG

TinyPNG is a free web application that utilizes a lossy compression method to minimize its size PNG files. All you have to do is visit their website and upload your pictures (simple drag & drop).

They will compress the image and provide you with a download link. You can also use their sister web site called TinyJPG and TinyJPG for JPEG picture compression.

There is also the extension Adobe Photoshop which is what we utilize as part of our editing process for images because it brings together the best features of TinyPNG and TinyJPG inside Photoshop.

For developers, they've got an API that can convert images for them automatically. And for beginners , they provide the WordPress plugin that can automatically complete the task for you (more on this later).

JPEG Mini

JPEGmini utilizes lossless compression technology that reduces the size of images while not impacting their visual quality. You can also check the quality of the original image with the compression image.

You can try their web version for no cost or purchase the application to run on your personal computer. They also have a paid API to automate processes of your web server.

ImageOptim

ImageOptim is an Mac utility that allows you image compression and compression that doesn't result in sacrificing any quality. It works by identifying the best compression parameters , and removal of unnecessary color profiles.

Windows alternatives to that are Trimage.

Best Image Optimization Plugins for WordPress

We believe that the best way to make your images more efficient is to prepare them before uploading images to WordPress. But, if you're running multi-author websites or require an automatic solution you could consider using a WordPress image compression plugin.

Below is our selection of the top WordPress Image compression software:

1. Optimole - popular plugin by The group behind ThemeIsle.
2. EWWW Image Optimizer
3. Compress JPEG & PNG images with the plugin created by the TinyPNG team that is mentioned earlier in the article.
4. Imagify is a plugin developed by the popular WP Rocket plugin team.
5. ShortPixel Image Optimizer
6. WP Smush
7. reSmush.it

Using any from these WordPress image optimization plugins can help you improve the speed of your website.

Final Thoughts and Best Practices for Image Optimization

If you're not saving images optimized for the web, then you should start doing this right today. It'll make a massive improvement in the speed of your site as well as your customers will be grateful for it.

In addition, faster websites are better for SEO, and you will likely see an increase in your search engine ranking.

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