The best image compression tools

 Tech News, Web Design
Feb 042013
 

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You’ve probably already made sure to choose the appropriate format for each image as well as keeping its size (in pixels) to a minimum. Maybe you’ve reduced the JPEG quality setting as much as you can. (Although if you’re not quite confident in your knowledge of the fundamentals then the Designer’s Guide to Image Compression may help.)

The unfortunate reality is that, no matter how carefully you design your images, the graphics tool you’re using will not save the finished files in the most efficient way. And so passing those images through a compression tool can reduce their size considerably.

Exactly how much you can save is tricky to say for sure as it depends very much on your source graphics. Some JPGs may only drop by 50-100 bytes. It’s not unusual for regular web graphics to be compressed by 10-40%, though, with no loss of image quality (and lossy compression techniques, perhaps reducing colours or reencoding JPEGs can cut file sizes even more).

Which programs are the best, then? Good question. To help provide an answer we’ve pitched 18 of the top contenders against each other.

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