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Glossary Design & Media

Image compression

Image compression makes an image file smaller, either exactly (lossless) or by discarding detail (lossy).

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In more detail

Lower quality settings shrink lossy files but add visible artefacts. A 4000 × 3000 photo is 36 million bytes uncompressed; a good JPEG of it is a few megabytes. Resize to the size you will display before compressing.

Try these tools

Image Compressor

Shrink an image's file size by re-encoding it at an adjustable quality level, then download the compressed result.

See also

  • Glossary JPEG
    JPEG is a lossy image format designed for photographs that makes small files by discarding detail the eye is least likely to notice.
  • Glossary WebP
    WebP is a modern image format from Google that supports lossy and lossless compression.
  • Guide How Image Formats and Compression Work
    JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP, AVIF, HEIC and SVG compared with measured file sizes, lossy versus lossless, aspect ratio and print maths.
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