Image Compressor: Complete Usage Guide

Purpose

The Image Compressor reduces the file size of photographs and graphics so pages load faster, email attachments fit under size limits, and uploads finish quickly. It re-encodes your image at a lower quality setting using the browser's Canvas engine — the original file is never uploaded, so it is safe for client work, unpublished product shots and personal photos. Typical savings run between 60% and 80% for camera photographs, with no difference visible at normal viewing size.

How to use it

1. 1Click 'Choose an image' and pick a JPG, PNG or WebP file from your device.
2. 2Drag the quality slider. Start at 80 — that is the sweet spot for most photographs.
3. 3Compare the original and compressed file sizes shown under the preview.
4. 4Inspect the preview at full size, paying attention to skies, skin tones and any text in the image.
5. 5Lower the quality further if the result still looks clean, then click Download to save the compressed file.

Tips & tricks

• Resize before you compress. Halving the pixel dimensions removes 75% of the data before the encoder even runs — use the Image Resizer first.
• Convert to WebP for the web. It is typically 25–35% smaller than JPG at matching quality and is supported by every current browser.
• Keep screenshots and logos as PNG. Lossy compression blurs text and hard edges long before it touches photographs.
• Always compress from the original file, never from an already-compressed copy — quality loss is cumulative and irreversible.
• Strip EXIF metadata afterwards with the Image Metadata Remover to save a few more kilobytes and remove embedded GPS coordinates.

Common errors and fixes