JPEGmini – reduce the file size, keep the quality

When people ask us: “How do I make my images load faster?”

The first thing we always ask these people is: “Well, how big are your images?” Because when it comes to images on the web – size matters and in this case – the smaller the better! You can read all about the best image size for your portfolio in this article.

Although, making sure your images are not unnecessary large is step one, there is a step two that is as important! So the second question we ask is: “How big are the file sizes of your images?”

A megabyte is way too big

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen photographers trying to upload images that are 1 MB and more! That’s not ok, don’t do that if you care about your load times.
You should always try to stay below 600kb per image. If you can make it below 300kb, that’s amazing and you’re awesome!

JPEGmini – put your images on a diet

So, how do you reduce your file sizes? There are a bunch of tools that can help you do that but in this article, I’ll tell you about a tool we’ve been using for years now in all our theme demos (and even on the cover images for this blog).

It’s called JPEGmini as you might have guessed from the post title already!

A quick side note – I’m writing about this particular tool because I really think that it’s great. We don’t get any ad money or referrals by advertising JPEGmini, we genuinely think it’s worth using!

Now, its worth mentioning that it is a paid app that you install and use on your desktop. It costs $19.99 for the basic app wich we use.

BUT:

The app offers a 14-day trial so if you can’t afford it right now, use the trial option to fix up your portfolio images for free.

Or if you don’t want to download it for any reason or your trial has expired, they provide a free Web service where you can upload your images onto their website and then download the JPEGmini versions.

How it works

You can read the technical explanation here if you’re curious but basically, JPEGmini uses magic to reduce your image file size up to 5x without any visible loss of quality!

From personal experience, I usually use this app on images that are around 1920px wide and the file size is usually reduced by around 3-4x.

This means that from an image that weighted 2MB I got an image that looks exactly the same but weighs only 464kb.

Regarding the quality, I really don’t see the difference between the original images and the compressed ones and I’m not the only one – people have really tried and tested JpEGmini to find its flaws. For more proof on the matter check out this article by  Kishore Sawh a photographer from Miami. He really puts JPEGmini under the microscope!

So try it out yourself on your files, there’s nothing you can lose since the trial period and the web service both are free, your website visitors will thank you!