We all love a high resolution photo but when uploading on the social media or web, you cannot have the original size for various reasons. Loading speed is the main culprit why you have to compress an image. Compress image size is a process to reduce the file size and is common before upload images online.
Image compression gives advantages for uses in various ways from speed upload time to faster file transfer. Though it has lots of benefits but it does not mean that the process gives no downsides. Image compression mainly affects the image quality in various ways. If you concern the quality of image, you will think again before employing the image size compressor.
What image compression mean?
Before we talk about the advantage and disadvantage of image compression, it is better to know what image compression mean. Image compression is the process of converts or encodes a file image that results in image of smaller size. This type of process usually decreases the size of the image file without costing the image quality.
There are numerous ways of compressing a photo but the popular method is data compression using algorithm or codec. This process applies to numerous techniques to decrease the photo size for instance splitting the image into some parts, resulting new photo using similar colored pixels or mathematical wavelets.
Advantages of image compression
Commonly, people apply an image size compressor before uploading an image on the web or social media. The most-used image formats for web and photography is JPEG/JPG, PNG, and GIF. These file formats are the result of image compression. To compress png to other file formats is one example of compressing an image. Here are some advantages of compressing an image.
- Lower image size – the main advantage of the image compressor is to create image of smaller size. There are situations when you need images in smaller size such as when uploading images on the web. Depending on the type of the file, you can compress an image to meet the desired size. Smaller image size also means more practical as it requires less storage space on the computer, smartphone, tablet, memory card, and so on. Further, an image of smaller size is also easier to alter or edit because the faster editing process thanks to the small file size. This is a great way if you are working with an average computer or tablet.
- Faster upload – not only it requires less storage space, but a smaller image size also means faster upload. No matter the website, whether e-commerce or personal web, a smaller image size requires less time to upload. Thus you can upload multiple pictures in only a short time.
- Faster website load – we all hate slow-loading websites. The good news is smaller image size has a faster website load. The smaller image size is suitable for the internet because you can create an image-rich website without consuming lots of storage space or bandwidth. A smaller image size is somewhat essential for a fully functional website.
- Faster transfer – aside from faster upload, a smaller image size works brilliantly for slow devices. This is because larger image size may not be working properly in some devices such as CD drives which only read certain file type.
Cons of image compression
Though image compression has its benefits in many ways it also has issues to follow. In general, image compression does not reduce the image’s physical size but reduces the data of the image. This surely comes with some downsides as the following.
- Reduced quality – image degradation is the main concern of compression. When you compress an image, the quality of the image is declined as well. Low-level image compression with formats such as JPEG, the declined quality may not be noticeable. However, this depends on various factors such as the type of image, the elements on the image such as colors and lights, and also the level of compression. If you are working with digital images, there is barely any difference between original and compressed images. This is because digital images do not deal with fixed and straight lines as well as pixel blocks with the same colors. For this reason, the digital image is more effective to compress.
- Data loss – besides quality reduction, another concern of image compression is data loss. When compressing an image, the program will dismiss some data of the image permanently. So that the program can produce an image with the desired file size. If you are going to compress an image, you must save the uncompressed file just in case you will need it one day. Or else you will lose the high-quality image file permanently.
- Various standard – image compressor tool usually provides selection on how much you want to compress the image. This is a good thing because you pick the size or quality standard to fit your needs. However, this also means that you will have a collection of compressed images at a different level.
The effect of compressing an image
Compressing an image downgrades its quality resulting in different resolutions of the image. If you simply reduce the image resolution, the process cuts down the number of pixels which results in a pixelated image. However, if you compress an image, the process applies a different algorithm to the image. Professional photographers usually use the uncompressed image or slightly compress the image to retain the quality of the image.
Why do you need an image compressor tool?
Though the cost of image compression is the quality, there are lots of moments when you need the compressor tool. When you need to upload images on the website, you will likely need to compress the image first. Compressing the image gives faster loading that allows you to upload multiple images at once. In addition, a smaller file size speeds up the website loading time. Speed loading is important if you want to provide a better user experience for the website visitors. If quality is your concern, you can slightly compress the image and make sure that the quality of the image is not that much different from the original image.
Meta: Image compression is the process to reduce the size of an image. The process of degrading the image file is very easy and does not cost on the image quality.