How to Compress Images Without Losing Quality

Large images slow down websites, bounce off email size limits and get rejected by upload forms. The good news: most photos can lose 60–80 % of their size before anyone can see a difference. Here is how to get there.

1. Start with the right dimensions

A phone photo is often 4000 pixels wide, but a blog post rarely shows images wider than 1200 pixels and an email preview even less. Resizing first is the single biggest saving: halving the width cuts the pixel count – and roughly the file size – by four. Resize Image does it in seconds.

2. Pick the right format

Photos belong in JPG or WEBP; screenshots and graphics in PNG. A photo saved as PNG can be ten times larger than necessary, so changing the format alone may solve the problem.

3. Use a good encoder and a sensible quality

Not all JPG encoders are equal. MozJPEG, used by iLoveConvert, produces noticeably smaller files than standard encoders at the same visual quality. A quality setting around 75 is the sweet spot for most photos; above 90 files grow quickly with little visible gain.

4. Compress PNGs with a palette

Screenshots, logos and illustrations rarely need millions of colours. Reducing a PNG to a smart palette of up to 256 colours – with careful dithering – often shrinks it by 70 % while looking identical. Compress PNG offers this as “Smart” mode, plus a truly lossless option.

5. Remove metadata

Camera details, thumbnails and GPS coordinates can add tens of kilobytes – and reveal where a photo was taken. iLoveConvert strips this metadata automatically when it compresses or converts images.

6. Don’t compress the same JPG again and again

Every lossy save loses a bit of detail. Keep your original and always compress from it rather than from an already compressed copy.

Quick recipe

• Resize to the size you actually need.
• Photos: JPG at quality ~75 (or WEBP).
• Graphics: PNG with Smart compression.
• Check the result at 100 % zoom before you publish.