Image compression: a review of online and offline tools

Images are no doubt one of the most effective means of communication on the internet. Almost all web pages on the Internet have at least one image. But, one thing that hampers the upload of images to the Internet is because of their sizes.

                Their sizes determine the amount of data consumed in the curse of their upload and also consumes appreciable online disk space. Also, for web masters (owners and managers of websites and blogs) know that for SEO, page speed is paramount, and for a web page to load fast, the sizes of images on them must be controlled to ensure that this is achieved.

                Image compression is the act of reducing the size of an image and at the same time, retaining its data using some algorithms that stores an exact representation or an approximation of the original image which is smaller in size (lesser bytes). Digital images are rated in pixels (a pixel is the smallest unit of any image on a television, computer screen, or on the screen of any electronic device).

online and offline tools that could be used to compress images:

Online tools

These online tools are provided by some websites. These websites allow users to upload images, choose specific features which they want on the image and then, their algorithms compress the image.

1.      Tinypng.com: TinyPNG uses smart lossy compression techniques to reduce the file size of your PNG files. By selectively decreasing the number of colors in the image, fewer bytes are required to store the data. The compressed PNG images are exactly the same with the original image that no one can tell the difference.

2. Optimizilla.com: This is an awesome online image compressor provided by Mediafox Marketing s.r.o which is capable of compressing 20 images at the same time but, the compressed images are deleted one hour after compression.

3. Imageoptimizer.net: This online tool provided by Geeks Ltd software Development Company in London, can resize, compress and optimize your image files and is very easy to use. They also have desktop (PC) software that is capable of compressing the whole images in a folder. 

4. Compressnow.com: Compressnow tool can be used to compress images and has the option of choosing the percentage of compression which you want to apply on the picture. It allows the upload of images less than or equal to 9mb. It works  on browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, etc.

5. Jpeg-optimizer.com

6. Smush.it

Offline Softwares

1. Mass image compressor:  Reduces considerable (>90%) image size by compromising on image  dimensions  and quality and can compress all images in a folder  with just single click. It is absolutely free. To download the app, visit this site

2. Caesium image compressor: This is a free, open source image compressor that can reduce the size of your pictures up to 90% without losing from the original quality. It is a valuable tool for webmasters, bloggers and photographers who look to optimize their collections of images.

3. Jstrip: Jstrip is an offline tool which compresses photos by removing non essential information: thumbnails, comments, color profiles, extra bytes, etc at the beginning or end of the file.

4. File optimizer: This is a powerful software which in addition to being able to compress different image formats (PNG, JPEG, JPG, GIF, etc), can compress other file types like pdf files, Microsoft office documents (excel, word, PowerPoint, etc). Its shortcoming is that it takes the original file to the recycle bin; therefore, you can recover the original file by checking your recycle bin after compression.

Other offline softwares include:

5. Fileminizer pictures:  This application reduces image size to about 98%.

6. One simple image compressor.

7.Image optimizer

Image files formats and their meanings:

1. JPEG: means “joint photographic experts group”. Digital cameras store images in this format and are the best for web pages. Its extensions are .jpg or .jpeg. Its short form is the JPG.

2. PNG: “portable network graphics”. This is designed to work well in online viewing applications like browsers, chat applications and can be fully streamed with a progressive display option.

3. GIF: “graphic interchange format”. This is suitable for storing graphics with few colors such as simple shapes, cartoon images, etc and supports animations.

4. BMP:”bit map file”.

5. TIF: a file extension for a TIFF file which mea ns “tagged image file format”