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How to Optimize Images for Web Performance, without sacrificing Quality

Did you be aware that optimizing images before uploading them onto WordPress can have a massive impact on the speed of your site?

When starting a new blog, the majority of beginners upload images without optimizing them for web. These huge image files make your site slow.

This can be fixed by applying optimization of images. optimization best methods in your daily blogging routine.

With this article, we will teach you how to improve your image for faster web performance without losing quality. Additionally, we will share automated imaging optimization plug-ins designed for WordPress that can simplify your life.

As this is a comprehensive guide to image optimization for the web, we have created an easy-to-follow table of contents:

• What's an image optimization? (optimized vs unoptimized images)
• What makes image optimization important? What are the benefits?
• How do I conserve and optimize images for web performance?
• Top image optimization tools and software
• The top photo optimization extensions for WordPress

What is Image Optimization? (Optimized vs Unoptimized Images)

Image optimization is the technique of saving and sharing images in the smallest file size while not reducing the overall quality of the image.

While the process sounds complex, it's actually quite easy today. You can use one of the many image optimization tools and plugins that automate the compression of images by up to 80% with any visible loss in image quality.

Here's an example that shows optimized images versus unoptimized:

As you can see, when optimized correctly, the image could be 75% smaller than the original picture without any loss of quality.

What is Image Optimization function?

In simple words in simple terms, image optimization use compression technology , such as "Lossy" and "Lossless" which reduces the overall size of files without causing any reduction in quality.

What does it mean to Optimize Images?

If you've ever been given an advice to optimize your images by your WordPress hosting provider or an instrument for speed testing, this means that you need to reduce the 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 images, below are the most significant ones that you must know about:

• Faster website speed
• Improvements in SEO rankings
• Higher overall conversion rate for leads and sales
• A smaller amount of storage and bandwidth (which can cut hosting and CDN cost)
• Faster website backups (also reduces cost of backup storage)

Images, besides video, are the second-heaviest items in a web page. From the HTTP archive the images account for in the average 21% the total weight on a web page.

As we have seen that faster websites perform better in search engine results (SEO) and also have higher conversions as well, image optimization is a must for every business website should do in order to grow online.

Perhaps you are wondering how much of a difference does image optimization actually create?

According to an Strangeloop study, a one second delay in loading time for websites could cost you 7% of sales, 11% less pageviews, and 16% drop in satisfaction among customers.

If this isn't enough of a reason to speed up the loading time of your site you need to know that search engines such as Google offer a preferential SEO treatment to websites that load faster.

By optimizing your images for the web it will improve your the speed of your website and increase WordPress SEO positions.

Video Tutorial

If you'd prefer written instructions, just keep reading.

How to Save and Optimize Images for Web Performance?

The key to success in images optimization that is optimized for performance on websites is to find the optimal balance between lowest file size and acceptable image quality.

The three factors which play a major role in 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 these three options, you can shrink your images' size by up 80 percent.

Let's take a look at each of these in more detail.

1. Image File Format

The majority of website owners believe that the only three images file formats that actually need to be considered can be described as JPEG, PNG, and GIF. The choice of the correct file format is crucial in image optimization.

To make things easy In order to keep things simple, use JPEGs for photos or images that have a lot of colors. PNGs for basic images or for transparent images, and GIF to only use animated images.

For those who don't understand the difference between each kind, the PNG format is non-compressed, meaning it's a much higher-quality image. The disadvantage is that it's file dimensions are larger.

However, JPEG is a compressed file format that reduces image quality in order to deliver a substantially smaller file size.

The difference is that GIF can only use 256 colors as well as lossless compression that makes it the ideal choice when it comes to animated photos.

On WPBeginner we employ three different image formats based on the type of image.

2. Compression

Another thing to consider is compression, which plays an enormous part for image optimization.

There are several types and levels of image compression available. These settings will differ depending on the compression tool you choose to use.

Many image editing tools such as Adobe Photoshop, On1 Photo, GIMP, Affinity Photo and others include integrated image compression features.

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

Though it's a little manual but these two techniques allow you to compress your images prior to uploading the images to WordPress that's the process we employ on WPBeginner.

There are a number of well-known WordPress plugins such as Optimole, EWWW Image Optimizer and many more that automatically compress images once you upload them. Many novices and even huge corporations are using these image optimization plugins as it's quick and efficient.

We'll discuss more details about these WordPress plugins in the following article.

3. Image Dimensions

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

The majority of these photos have the resolution of 300 DPI with dimensions starting from 2000 pixels and up. These photos of high quality are suitable for desktop or print printing. These images are not appropriate for websites.

A reduction in file dimensions to something more reasonable can significantly decrease the size of images. You can easily alter the size of images by using an image editing program on your personal computer.

As an example, we have optimized the photo using 1.8 megabytes original size with a 300 DPI resolution, and dimensions of 4900x3200 pixels.

We decided to use the jpeg format for larger compression. The dimensions were changed to 1200x795 pixels, and it reduced the image's size to 103 KB. This is 94% smaller than the original file size.

Now that you know the three essential elements of image optimization and image optimization, let's take an in-depth look at the various images optimization tools for owners of websites.

Best Image Optimization Tools and Programs

As we've mentioned before, most image editing software come with image optimization along with compression and image optimization settings.

Beyond the editing software for images, there are numerous powerful free image optimization tools that you could employ to optimize your images for web (with only one or two clicks).

We suggest using these tools to enhance images before uploading them to WordPress especially if are an expert.

This method helps you save the disk space of your WordPress hosting account, and will guarantee an image that is fast and of the best quality since you manually examine 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 picture and select"File> Save For Web "File >> Save for Web" option.

This will open an additional dialog box. To the right, you can choose different image formats. In the case of JPEG format, you will get a range of quality options. When you select your options it will also give you the size of the image at the bottom left.

GIMP

GIMP is a no-cost and open-source alternative to the popular Adobe Photoshop. It can be used to enhance your photos for use on the internet. The downside is that it's not as straightforward to use as other methods on this list.

The first step is to open your image within GIMP then click the File >> Export to option. It will open the save file dialog box. Create a new name and then click on"Export Now.

Then, you will be presented with options to export images. For JPEG files, you can select the compression rate to reduce the size of the file. And finally, click on"export button" in order for you to save an optimized picture file.

TinyPNG

TinyPNG is a free online application that utilizes a lossy compression technique to shrink their size PNG images. All you have to do is go to their website and upload your pictures (simple drag and drop).

They compress the image, and give you the download link. It is possible to use their companion webpage, TinyJPG, for JPEG image compression.

They also have extensions for Adobe Photoshop that we utilize as part of our image editing process because it blends the best of TinyPNG and TinyJPG in Photoshop.

For developers, they have an API that allows you to convert images on the fly, and for newcomers, they have a WordPress plugin that will automatically convert images for you (more on this later).

JPEG Mini

JPEGmini is a lossless compression process that drastically reduces the size of images while not altering their perception. You can also compare the quality of your original image with the compression image.

You can try their web version for no cost and then purchase the software for your computer. They also offer a paid API that will automate the process on your server.

ImageOptim

ImageOptim is an Mac utility that permits you to reduce images, without losing any quality. It works by identifying the most efficient compression parameters and getting rid of color profiles that aren't needed.

Windows Alternate to this Trimage.

Best Image Optimization Plugins for WordPress

We believe that the best way to optimize your images is by doing it before uploading them to WordPress. If you have an author-based site or require an automatic solution then you could try the WordPress image compression plugin.

Below is our selection of the top WordPress compressors for images:

1. Optimole an extremely popular plugin created by The team behind ThemeIsle.
2. EWWW Image Optimizer
3. Compress JPEG and PNG images using the plugin developed by the TinyPNG team mentioned above in the article.
4. Imagify - a plugin from the popular WP Rocket plugin team.
5. ShortPixel Image Optimizer
6. WP Smush
7. reSmush.it

Using any or all of the WordPress image optimization plugin will help you speed up the performance of your website.

Final Thoughts and Best Practices for Image Optimization

If you're not saving images optimized for the web, you need to start doing this today. This will make a major difference on your site speed and your visitors will thank you for it.

Additionally, faster websites are excellent for SEO, and you'll likely experience an increase in your ranking on search engines.

Utilize this tool convert to png