Image Compressor

For standard web use, JPEG quality 75–85 is the sweet spot — typically reducing file size by 50–80% with minimal visible quality loss. For thumbnails or preview images where quality is less critical, 60–70 works well. For hero images, photography portfolios, or images that will be zoomed, use 85–95. Avoid going below 60 for photos — compression artifacts become clearly visible.

PNG uses lossless compression, which means every pixel is preserved exactly. There's no quality tradeoff — you can't throw away image data the way JPEG does. To reduce PNG file size, either: (1) convert to JPEG or WebP using the Output Format setting, (2) resize the image to smaller dimensions, or (3) use a dedicated PNG optimizer that strips unused color palette entries and metadata. This tool's most effective approach for PNG is conversion to WebP or JPEG.

Use WebP when your audience is primarily on modern browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari 14+, Edge) — which is most of the web in 2025. WebP typically achieves 25–35% smaller files than JPEG at equivalent visual quality. Use JPEG when you need universal compatibility (older systems, email clients, social platforms that don't preserve WebP). JPEG is also safer for photography contexts where the receiving system is unknown.

Yes, re-compressing a JPEG causes "generation loss" — each compression cycle introduces new artifacts. If you're re-compressing at the same or higher quality, the damage is minimal. If you compress a JPEG at quality 90, re-compress at quality 90 again, the result is slightly worse than the original but usually acceptable. Compressing at a lower quality each time accelerates degradation. For archival purposes, always keep a lossless master copy (PNG or uncompressed TIFF) and only compress final output files.

This can happen when: (1) The original was already highly compressed and re-encoding at a higher quality actually increases size. Try lowering the quality slider. (2) You're converting a small PNG to JPEG — some small PNGs compress better than JPEG. (3) You're converting a greyscale or simple-color image to JPEG — JPEG is optimized for photographic content. For non-photographic images (logos, icons, diagrams), PNG or WebP lossless mode produces smaller files.

EXIF metadata is embedded information in image files: camera model, GPS location, shooting settings, copyright notices, and thumbnail previews. It can add 20–100KB to a file. This tool strips EXIF automatically by re-encoding via Canvas, since the Canvas API doesn't preserve EXIF data. For images with small EXIF (most photos), this saves a small but consistent amount. For privacy-conscious users, EXIF stripping also removes GPS coordinates embedded by smartphone cameras.