Reduce image file size with these compressors to optimize website speed

Optimizing web site for fastest loading is crucial for web user experience and also one of the important signals that Google will take note in determining a page ranking (SEO) in the search result page.

One of the tools that I use frequently to check if my web page loading speed is up to the standard or not is Google's PageSpeed Insights.

What PageSpeed does is to identify the speed bumps or bottlenecks that are slowing down a webpage loading speed and provide suggestions to improve the page loading speed. For example, the screen shot below shows the potential rooms for improving a page speed by compressing images to reduce file size. It tells you that by compressing or resizing certain image file could save how many kilobytes and reduction percentage.

As you can see, the score 58/100 is affected by the bigger image files and these tools listed below can help to reduce the image files sizes.

1. ImageOptim

My personal favourite on my Mac and I've been using ImageOptim for number of years. It can handle GIF, JPEG and PNG image formats. The best part is that all you need to do to compress images is just drag-n-drop the files or folders into the dialog box, the ImageOptim's dock icon.

If you are a developer looking to integrate ImageOptim into your project, do check out the ImageOptim's CLI(command line interface tool)

2. TinyPNG.com and TinyJPG.com

These guys know the PNG technology very well. For instance, PNG colors are combined in image file by using a technique known as “quantization” and TinyPNG works to reduce the number of colors by selectively decreasing the the number of colors in the image. Colors that our human eyes won't notice the difference. Smart!

As for TinyJPG, it will analyze the JPEG image to identify and remove distracting JPEG artifacts and useless metadata.

The company behind TinyJPG and TinyPNG provides API hooks to enable your application to compress images on the fly. It is free to use the API for up to 500 images and then it will $0.0009 per image for the next 9500 images per month. Check out the pricing at https://tinypng.com/developers

3. FILE minimizer Pictures

A popular image compressor – FILE minimizer pictures is a Windows application that allows you to compress JPG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, PNG and EMF images and pictures by up to 98%.

Apart from that, it has couple of neat features such as ability to optimize images before sending them via email and Facebook integration. The look and feel does reminds me of the WinZip application – oh – maybe that's how standard Windows XP application looks like. If you are looking to compress more than image file, do check out the FILEminizer Suite – which can optimize PDF files and tight integration with Microsoft products.

4. PngOptimizer

PNG Optimizer reduce your PNG files by getting rid of useless or wrong information. It can also convert PNG into other lossless image formats such as BMP, GIF or TGA.

Similar to ImageOptim, you can just simply drag-n-drag the PNG files to PngOptimizer to reduce the images' file size. Don't want to run as Windows application? No worries, there are command line version as well for you to use in your own server and you are looking to integrate PngOptimizer into your own application, there is a Dynamic Link Libraries (DLL) that you can use.

5. CompressNow

If you are looking for online image compressor instead of downloading a full application, head over to compressnow.com.

It is a free online service that allows you to upload(drag-n-drop) multiple images to their server and returns similar but significantly reduce in size image files back to you.

6. PNG Gauntlet

Another PNG files optimizer/compressor worth checking out is PNG Gauntlet. It is a Windows application that combines OptiPNG, PNGOUT and DeflOpt to slim down the fatty PNGs to the slimmest/smalles PNG file possible.

By the way, if you throw in JPG, GIF, TIFF or BMP files, it eats them and spits out PNG files.

7. RIOT – Radical Image Optimization Tool

What if you just want to have all your images optmized the moment you save or export it? Then you should check out RIOT – Radical Image Optimization Tool. It is a Windows application that comes with user friendly interface that lets you compare original image with the optimized version instantly.

One feature that I like it the most is that it has plugin for GIMP, IrfanView and other applications that support third party plug-ins. It was created by Lucian Sabo or CRIOSWEB at Romania. A prolific developer that also created CRIOSWEB HTML Cleaner and ConDei – simple programmer editor.

Wrapping up

It is no secret that a website ranking in the organic search result will be heavily influence by the loading speed. Apart from optimizing images with these tools listed above, you should also look into other factors that were suggested by Google's PageSpeed Insights to get the score as high as possible. I doubt that a website will ever achieve 100/100, but do try to get as close as possible.