Tools to Optimize Images for WordPress sites

When it comes to improving site speed, what solutions you often think of? Optimize caching and efficient coding, remove sluggish plugins or rely on a good host. Very impressive! But chances are, you may forget about optimal image compression. Doing it the right way it will lower uploading time, reduce bandwidth usage and end up speeding up your site loading. Some may argue that compressing your images is a double-edged sword when it takes a toll on the image’s quality. But don’t get panic just yet. We are here to provide you some tips on how to balance between image size and quality.

The right image file format

Image file formats are plenty, yet two most common remain JPG and PNG. The differences between those two are quite huge so be careful when you opt for which type of format.

JPG Format	PNG Format
Uses lossy compression Small file size with acceptable quality For detailed photographs Does not support transparency	Uses lossless compression Large file size with high quality For logos/ graphics Supports transparency

Above are basic differences between a JPG file and PNG one. You can read the detailed comparison at Udemy Blog. JPG is widely used for photographs and landscape or realistic images with full colors and many details. PNG, on the other hand, is the popular format for buttons, logo, line art or text-heavy graphics with few colors and details. One more thing is that PNG supports transparency so that you can create a transparent background image while this is impossible with JPG format.

Compress images using softwares

Choosing the right file type is just the first step of the image optimization story. Next you need to know how to compress your images before uploading to your site to save your database from sluggish and bloated. And here are some photo editor programs that do the tricks.

Photoshop This is unarguably one of the most popular photo editors being used these days. You can easily choose the option Save for web after you are done with all modifications.

GIMP If you can not afford a premium application like Photoshop, GIMP is a good resource. It is free and offers similar features.

RIOT is free and easy to use with a real time preview and comparison between the original image and the compressed version.

Trimage the software compresses JPG and PNG files losslessly to retain the original quality. It is free and available for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux.

JPEG mini uses lossless compression and offers both free and premium package on Mac OS X and Windows.

Compress images using plugins

Aside from photo editor softwares, you can optimize images after uploading to your WordPress site using plugins. Good thing about using plugins is plugins offer an automatic and bulk implementation. Below are some reliable WordPress plugins to go for.

EWWW Image Optimizer

EWWW Image Optimizer compresses any image formats to a smaller size without changing the original quality. Not only newly uploaded images but existing ones in the media library can be optimized at ease with this plugin.

WP Smush.it

Similar to EWWW Image Optimizer, WP Smush.it also offers lossless compression to both existing and newly added images. Whenever you upload a new image to your blog, it will be sent to Smush.it for optimization, thanks to the smooth integration between Smush.it and WordPress. WP Smush.it also converts certain GIFs to indexed PNGs and strips the un-used colours from indexed images.

Imsanity

The plugin allows you to configure a max width, height and quality for uploaded images. It uses WordPress built-in image scaling functions to scale down overlarge images and overwrite the original ones.

Hammy

Rather than scaling or compressing your images to a specific size, Hammy prepares several smaller versions to serve different visitors based on their devices’ screen size and connection speed. More on how to install this plugin can be found in this video.

In short

I hope for now you have had in hands great tools helping you optimizing images and graphics for your site. Do leave comments to share with us if you know other tools and methods.