[Advice Wanted] Best way to squash images

Brett Peters

Well-known member
Basically I am after some advice or opinions on the best way to reduce an image size to maximize my 100Gb limit without having to sacrifice image quality, So far I have reduced the size of the images and am now at a loss regarding the best way to squash the images to conserve space.

All images are JPEG and I use OS X

All comments & opinions are more than welcome
 
Apart from resizing and increasing the compression, there's not much else you can do.
But as you already know, compression and image quality are mutually exclusive.

Sometimes .png format can give you a smaller file size, with no loss of quality.
 
Thanks Brogan, I will have a play around with .png to see if I can get a slightly better result.
Image compression is all new to me, I actually dont mind dipping the quality a bit if the end results are viewable.

Would using different software give different results with compression & quality ?
 
Would using different software give different results with compression & quality ?
There may be very slight variations due to the algorithms used but overall they will be pretty much the same.

I tend to use a ratio of around 20% but even then you can see artefacts.

Be aware that the image content will vastly affect the .png size.
In some cases it may be smaller but in others it will be much larger.
 
Ok, time for me to go and have a play

On a side note.. Brogan you the man, Hope home schooling and everything else is going well (no need to mention your site as it clearly sets a standard) (y)
 
Basically I am after some advice or opinions on the best way to reduce an image size to maximize my 100Gb limit without having to sacrifice image quality, So far I have reduced the size of the images and am now at a loss regarding the best way to squash the images to conserve space.

All images are JPEG and I use OS X

All comments & opinions are more than welcome
  1. If you have Photoshop you can do a "Save for Web".
  2. Else you can use Google Pagespeed's Image Optimizer. That will drastically reduce your image size losslessly. It also works through cmd prompt so you can write a quick shell script to recursively optimize images.
  3. You can use smusher. You will need to install the script on a linux box and it can also drastically reduce image sizes losslessly.
I have personally used all three (though it was not required). My images are saved with Photoshop, save as web, then I run image optimizer on them on my pc, upload the images on the server and run the smusher script. :)
 
  1. If you have Photoshop you can do a "Save for Web".
  2. Else you can use Google Pagespeed's Image Optimizer. That will drastically reduce your image size losslessly. It also works through cmd prompt so you can write a quick shell script to recursively optimize images.
  3. You can use smusher. You will need to install the script on a linux box and it can also drastically reduce image sizes losslessly.
I have personally used all three (though it was not required). My images are saved with Photoshop, save as web, then I run image optimizer on them on my pc, upload the images on the server and run the smusher script. :)

sadikb thanks for the informative post, Now that I have more info regarding image compression services and techniques I have downloaded ImageOptim which gave impressive results on a small test. Still need to do some further research & testing but I can say that your post has really helped to point me in a promising direction (y)
 
Basically I am after some advice or opinions on the best way to reduce an image size to maximize my 100Gb limit without having to sacrifice image quality, So far I have reduced the size of the images and am now at a loss regarding the best way to squash the images to conserve space.

All images are JPEG and I use OS X

All comments & opinions are more than welcome

Smush :3

http://www.smus h i t.com/ysmush.it/


Sometimes .png format can give you a smaller file size, with no loss of quality.
Really? I allways find its the other way around png's are well bigger (none transparent that is)
 
Prob best to do it before you move to the server or you will be just repeating yourself :)

Server >> smuch.it >> images again >> server again
vs
Smuch.if >> server >> done :)
 
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