You need to email a batch of photos, upload product images to a website, or attach screenshots to a support ticket — but the files are too large. Here's how to shrink them down without making them look worse.
How to compress images
- Open the Image Compressor
- Drop your images into the upload area (or click to browse). Accepts JPG, PNG, and WebP.
- Adjust the quality slider — 80% is the sweet spot for most images
- Preview the compressed result and compare file sizes
- Download your compressed images
Everything runs in your browser. Your images never leave your device.
How much can you save?
A typical 4 MB smartphone photo compresses to under 500 KB at 80% quality with no visible difference to the human eye. Screenshots with flat colors compress even more aggressively — a 2 MB PNG can drop to 200 KB.
The savings depend on the image type:
- Photos (complex scenes, gradients): expect 60-80% reduction at quality 80
- Screenshots (flat UI, text, solid colors): expect 80-90% reduction
- Graphics with transparency (logos, icons as PNG): expect 40-60% reduction
JPG vs PNG: which to compress?
JPG is already a lossy format — it was designed for photos and handles compression well. Reducing quality from 100 to 80 removes data that's invisible to most people.
PNG is lossless by design. The compressor reduces PNG file size by optimizing the encoding without discarding data. You can be more aggressive with PNG compression without worrying about visual artifacts.
WebP handles both lossy and lossless compression and generally produces smaller files than either JPG or PNG at equivalent quality. If your target platform supports WebP, it's the best format for web images.
When does quality loss become visible?
Below 60% quality, you'll start to see artifacts in JPG images — blocky patterns in gradients, smearing around sharp edges, and halos around text. Stay above 70% for anything a human will look at closely. Drop to 50-60% for thumbnails or images that will be displayed small.
For PNG, quality loss isn't a factor — the compression is lossless. File size reduction comes from smarter encoding, not discarding pixels.
Does compressing an image reduce its resolution?
No. Compression reduces file size by optimizing how pixel data is stored. The dimensions (width x height) stay the same. Resolution and file size are different things.
Can I compress multiple images at once?
Yes. Drop a batch of images into the compressor and they'll all be processed. Download them individually or as a batch.
Is 80% quality good enough for a website?
For most web images, 80% is ideal. Google recommends keeping images under 200 KB for page speed. At 80% quality, most photos are well under that threshold with no visible quality loss.
Should I compress images before converting to PDF?
Yes. If you're assembling images into a PDF using the PNG to PDF converter or JPG to PDF converter, compressing first will produce a much smaller PDF that's easier to email and faster to open.