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How can you optimize Imagesfor the Web's Performance, without sacrificing Quality

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

When the time comes to start a new blog many novices upload pictures without optimizing them for the web. Large images can slow your website's performance slow.

It is possible to fix this issue by applying Image optimizationbest methods as part of your regular blog routine.

With this article in this article, we'll teach you how to optimize your photos for better website performance, without sacrificing quality. We will also present automatic optimization plugins for images. optimization extensions for WordPress which can make your life easy.

Since this is a thorough guide on image optimization for web so we've put together an easy to follow table of contents:

• How do you define image optimization? (optimized as opposed to unoptimized)
• What makes image optimization important? What are the advantages?
• How can I store and optimize images for web performance?
• Top image optimization tools and software
• Top Images optimization plug-ins to WordPress

What is Image Optimization? (Optimized vs Unoptimized Images)

Image optimization is the process of saving and sending images in the smallest image size, while not diminishing the overall image quality.

Although the process may sound complicated but it's actually fairly simple these days. You can use any of the many image optimization tools and plugins that automate the compression of images by up to 80% without any noticeable decrease in image quality.

Here's an example for optimizing as compared to unoptimized.

The results are clear, when optimized correctly, the same image can be 75% smaller than the original , without any loss of quality.

What is Image Optimization function?

In simple terms images optimization uses compression technology such as "Lossy" and "Lossless" which help to reduce the overall size of the file without causing any loss of quality.

What is it to optimize Images?

If you've ever received an advice to optimize your images by your WordPress hosting support or by an instrument for speed testing, then all it means is that you have to decrease the file 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?

There are many advantages of optimizing your photos, below are some of the best to be aware of:

• Faster website speed
• Improved SEO rankings
• The higher conversion rate overall for sales and leads
• Reduced storage and bandwidth (which can cut hosting and CDN cost)
• Faster backups to websites (also reduces the cost for backup storage)

Other than video, images are the next heaviest item in a web page. According to HTTP archives, images comprise in the average 21% the total weight of the page.

Because we know that fast websites rank higher in search engines (SEO) and experience better conversions in terms of image optimization is something every business website must do in order to grow online.

Now , you might be wondering what kind of difference could image optimization actually create?

According to a Strangeloop study, a 1 second delay in the speed of loading your website will cost you 7% on sales. That's 11% fewer pageviews, and a 16% less satisfaction from customers.

If these aren't enough reasons to speed up the loading time of your site it is important to understand that search engines such as Google offer a preferential SEO treatment to sites that load faster.

This means that by optimizing the images you upload for web this can improve the speed of your website as well as boost 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 successful Image optimization on the web is to strike the perfect balance between lowest file size and acceptable image quality.

Three factors which play a major importance 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)

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

Let's look at each one in more details.

1. Image File Format

For most website owners, the three primary image file formats that should be considered comprise JPEG, PNG, and GIF. The right choice of format is essential to image optimization.

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

For those who aren't sure of what is the difference between each type, PNG image format is uncompressed . This means it's a much higher-quality image. Its disadvantage is that its sizes are considerably larger.

On the other hand, JPEG is a compressed format, which reduces image quality in order to create a significantly smaller size file.

In contrast, GIF can only use 256 colors along with lossless compression which makes it the ideal choice with regard to animation images.

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

2. Compression

The next thing is image compression, which plays an important role for image optimization.

There are different kinds and levels of compression that are available. Each of the parameters will vary depending on the image compression tool you employ.

The majority of image editors, including Adobe Photoshop, On1 Photo, GIMP, Affinity Photo and others include built-in features to compress images.

You may also save images by default and then utilize a web tool like TinyPNG or JPEG Mini for easier image compression.

While it's not the most user-friendly but these two techniques allow the compression of images prior to uploading them to WordPress, and this is the method we use on WPBeginner.

There are also many popular WordPress plugins, such as Optimole, EWWW Image Optimizer and many more that automatically compress images when you upload them. Many newbies, and even larger corporations prefer to use these images optimization plugins as it's quick and quick.

We'll provide more information about these WordPress plugins later in the article.

3. Image Dimensions

Normally when you import a picture from your phone or a digital camera, it has a very high resolution and enormous file dimensions (height and wide).

In general, these photos have a resolution of 300 DPI and dimensions starting from 2000 pixels and up. The high-quality photos are perfect for desktop or print publishing. They're not suitable for websites.

The reduction of file sizes to something less limiting can drastically reduce the size of your images. You can easily resize images by using an image editing program on your computer.

As an example, we have optimized a photo with 1.8 MB original file size, 300 DPI resolution, and image dimensions of 4900x3200 pixels.

We opted for the Jpeg format to allow greater compression. We then changed the dimensions to 1200x795 pixel, and it decreased the image file size to 103 KB. That's 94% less than the size of the original file.

Now that you've identified the three essential elements of image optimization we can take a look at various images optimization tools available to website owners.

Best ImageOptimization Tools and Programs

We mentioned it earlier that most image editing software come including image optimization and compression settings.

Beyond the software for editing images, there are many powerful , free image optimization tools you can use to optimize images for websites (with only one or two clicks).

We recommend making use of these tools for optimizing images before you upload them to WordPress particularly if are an obsessive.

This approach helps you conserve the disk space of your WordPress hosting account, and it guarantee the fastest image and the top quality, as you manually check every image.

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is a premium software that comes with the capability of saving images that are optimized for web use. Simply open your photo and click on"File> Save For Web "File >> Save for Web" option.

It will open a new dialog box. To the right, you are able to choose various image formats. In the case of JPEG format, you will have a variety of quality options. After you have selected your choices it will also show you the file size at the bottom left.

GIMP

GIMP is a no-cost and open source alternative to Adobe Photoshop. It is a tool to make your images more attractive for web use. The drawback is that it's not as simple to use as some other solutions on this list.

To begin, open the image in GIMP and then select File >> Export as option. This will show the save file dialog box. You can give your file a new name and then hit"Export Now.

Then, you will be presented with options for exporting images. For JPEG files, you can choose the compression level to reduce file size. Click on an export option to download the image you have optimized.

TinyPNG

TinyPNG is a completely free web application that employs a clever lossy compression technique to shrink in size your PNG files. All you need to do is visit their website and upload your pictures (simple drag & drop).

They compress the image, and give you the download URL. You can make use of their sister websitecalled TinyJPG and TinyJPG for JPEG images.

There is also an extension for Adobe Photoshop which is what we use for our image editing procedure because it blends the best of TinyJPG and tinyPNG inside Photoshop.

For developers, they offer an API that converts images in a way that is automatic, and for beginners they have an WordPress plugin that will do the job for you (more on this later).

JPEG Mini

JPEGmini utilizes a lossless compression process that drastically reduces the size of pictures without any impact on their perceived quality. You can also compare the quality of the original image with the compression image.

You can access their web version for no cost or you can purchase the program to run on your personal computer. There is also a paid API that can automate the process that your server uses.

ImageOptim

ImageOptim is an Mac utility that permits you the compression of images with no sacrificing any quality by finding the optimal compression parameters and remove unnecessary color profiles.

Windows Alternative to this Trimage.

Best Image Optimization Plugins for WordPress

We believe that the most efficient method to optimize your images is by doing it before uploading images to WordPress. However, if your site is the site of multiple authors or you require an automatic solution you may want to consider a WordPress image compression plugin.

Below is our list of the best WordPress image compression plugins:

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

Utilizing any or all of the WordPress image optimization plugins can help you make your website faster.

Final Thoughts and Best Practices for Image Optimization

If you aren't saving images that are optimized for the web, it's time to do this right now. It's going to make a big difference in speed and users will thank you for it.

Additionally, faster websites are ideal for SEO and you'll likely notice an increase in your search engine rankings.

Make use of this tool convert to png