Photos that have a large size, will take longer time to load. Even this photo will take up space in your storage. One solution to still be able to get quality images, but have a light size is to compress photos. To be successful in this activity, you can easily follow how to compress photos below.
What is Photo Compression?
Photo compression is a process designed to reduce file size of photographs so the resulting images consume less RAM on your computer. It’s not too complicated and it’s a smart way to save computer memory.
So, why do you need to compress images? There are any reasons. However, the most common one is that it is considered to be a good practice to use compressed photos in your web site, especially when optimizing for mobile web. Compressing photos before sending them through email can also saves you time, especially if your email server has a limit file size.
Outside of industry best practice, compressing photos can simply free lots of spaces on your hard disk which can be used to store other things.
How Image Compression Works
There are two methods to compress pictures: Lossless and Lossy. For those of you who are new to the image editing world, those words might mean nothing to you. Let us discuss both methods to see what they mean.
Lossless Compression
Lossless compression is a method to compress images that preserve the image quality. To understand this, you need to understand the many types of image first.
If you ever take a picture with DSLR camera or any digital camera, you might have noticed that you save your image as RAW or JPEG file. RAW, as the name suggest, has no compression which resulting in the bigger image size. JPEG, on the other hand, is a compressed photos file that does not take as much space as RAW file. However, the image’s quality will not be crisp as the RAW file.
Other than RAW, there are other lossless image file types such as PNG and BMP.
Lossy Compression
Compared to Lossless compression, Lossy compression method saves more space. How does it works? Because lossy compression works by removing parts of your image when compressing images.
It does not mean your photo will look bad. However, if you repeat the process several times, such as cropping or editing your JPEG images, your photo image quality will drop fast.
How to Compress Photos with Ease
The following are some ways you can produce quality images but have a file size that is not too large. Let’s get started.
1. With the Help of the Online Photo Compress Tool
One of the best ways to reduce photo size is to use the help of online photo size compression. There are lots of online photo compression applications that you can use. The method is quite easy:
- Access and open the website of your choice.
- Upload a photo or drag a photo to the compression box to reduce the size of the photo. Pay attention to the maximum size of the photo allowed.
- Wait a moment and you can compare the quality of the photo before and after it is compressed by clicking the eye logo in the corner of the image.
- Download compressed images online.
This method is perfect for those of you who need pictures and photos quickly and without having to install software or applications first on your smartphone or PC.
2. Changing Photo Format to Reduce Photo Size
One of the simplest way to compress image is to change the file format. You will see the change in your image files size immediately. One of the most common image file formats used are JPG/JPEG and PNG.
The JPG format has a smaller photo size compared to the PNG format, because the JPG format supports a limited number of colours, but PNG supports unlimited photo colours.
Here’s a way to convert a photo from PNG to PNG format:
- Download and install Photoscape software.
- Open a photo with Photoscape and select the Editor menu.
- After that, select the Editor menu and Save As with the Ctrl + Shift + S key combination on the keyboard.
- If the save box comes out then select Save as type at the bottom of the photo name to JPEG format (* .jpg * jpeg).
So, if you want to upload your photos to a website or online, try the WEBP photo format, because this format has a very small size compared to the two photo formats above.
How to Change Photo Format JPG / PNG to WEBP:
- Download and install WebPconv software.
- Open WebPconv and it will automatically open to Encode mode.
- Select and add photos using the Plus icon or directly Drag & Drop by using the mouse on the photo you want to convert to JPG or PNG format.
- If the photo has been entered into the software, then then start the process of changing the photo format by selecting the Play button.
- After the Encode process is complete, your photo files will be saved to the Desktop in the web_encode folder.
3. Reducing the Color Depth of Photos
One of the factors causing the photo file size to be too large is due to color. Color depth is an important factor in the sharpness of a photo. Each photo format has a different file size. For example, JPG photo files have a smaller photo size compared to PNG because there are limited support numbers of color that JPG can use. Confused about how to reduce the color depth of a photo? Follow the steps to reduce the photo file size below:
- Open Photoshop and open the photo file that will be compressed in size.
- After that, select the menu Image> Mode> Indexed Color and 8 Bits / Channel. Why Indexed Color? Because this color depth has a smaller photo file size compared to RGB Color.
- After that Save As your photo to compare the file size of the photo before and after being compressed in this way.
Read also: Changing Color of Image in Illustrator
4. Shrink Photo Size By Cropping Photos
The next way to be able to reduce the size of the photo file without destroying the quality of the photo is by cropping or cutting the photo and removing unnecessary parts. So there are many ways to crop photos, for example Adobe Photoshop, Photoscape and Paint (the default Windows application). Here’s how to crop photos using Adobe Photoshop:
- Open the Photoshop application
- Open your photo file
- After that select the Crop tool and select which part to crop.
- After that, decide which part will be cropped.
- Select the check mark.
- After cropping, don’t forget to Save As your photo.
Those are the steps on how to compress photos that you can follow. By following these steps, you can reduce the file size for your product image. But, if you don’t have enough time for this, or it’s just too hard for you, try professional product image editing services Dropicts. We are ready to help you to fix your photos. Just go to our website for more information.If you have any questions about this, don’t be shy to leave a comment!
