Free Image Optimization Tools for Better Page Performance

Can you imagine a website without a single image? To tell the truth, I can’t. Whatever kind of website you own, it goes without saying that your content includes images. Consequently, website owners should be aware of free image optimization tools to ensure smooth website performance and a good user experience.

The Impact of Images

Perhaps, nowadays, even a kid knows this obvious truism: “A picture is worth a thousand words”. So, it’s not surprising that visual content has become an inevitable part of each and every website.

On the one hand, images really do a great job. They grab the attention of your online audience and help you convey the message clearly. Is it possible to create an online store or personal portfolio without various galleries showcasing your products and services? Of course, not.

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On the other hand, images can play a bad joke on you. If you don’t care about their size and quality, the images may simply kill the best website idea. It’s obvious that heavy, not optimized images overload your website with hundreds of unnecessary kilobytes. Thus, the loading speed of your web pages slows down significantly, causing worse website performance and poor user experience.

According to the statistics, 47% of consumers expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less. Moreover, 40% tend to abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load. Furthermore, a one-second delay decreases your customer satisfaction by about 16%. Hence, the website overloaded with not optimized images has almost no future. Does this mean that your website should do without images?

A Simple Way out – Free Image Optimization

Fortunately, the solution to the problem is relatively simple and available to anyone. Free image optimization tools are the very thing you need to cope successfully with the task. They help you reduce image size and optimize images for the web. The best thing is that your pictures don’t lose their original quality if appropriately compressed.

Frankly speaking, the number of free online image optimizer tools is quite large. That’s why to save your time and effort, I decided to tell you about my favorite ones in this article. Hope, you’ll find them helpful and easy to apply. However, there’s one thing you have to define before using any of these free image optimization tools. First and foremost, you should realize what types of images your website needs.

Types of Images for Your Website

Probably, you know that there are three common file types of images optimized for the web. They are JPEG, GIF, and PNG. So, it’s a good thing to find out their peculiarities before saving your image.

• JPEG (or .jpg) images are definitely the most widely used file type on the web. They are great for photos and images with a wide range of colors, gradients, and shades. You can compress them considerably without losing the high quality of the original image. Therefore, they are the best bet for showcasing your products and services online.
• GIF (.gif) images have a lower quality than JPEGs and are restricted to 256 colors. Consequently, I don’t advise you to use them for large product images. However, they will perfectly do for smaller images with few colors, for instance, icons.
• PNG (.png) images have two versions – PNG-8 and PNG-24. While working with this image type, always remember that the PNG-24 file size is three times larger than PNG-8. The main advantage of PNGs is their ability to handle transparency. So, they work well as logos.

Have you already decided what file type you need? Then it’s high time to get acquainted with free image optimization tools.

TinyPNG / TinyJPEG

TinyPNG / TinyJPEG is a free online image optimizer I’d like to begin with. Firstly, it allows you to compress and optimize images and photos for both JPEGs and PNGs. This convenient image optimizer uses smart lossy compression techniques to reduce the size of your file significantly. Actually, the difference in the quality of the original image and the reduced one is almost invisible. However, the size of the two files differs significantly – up to 70%. Secondly, TinyPNG / TinyJPEG gives you an opportunity for bulk uploading (up to 20 images 5MB each). However, the registered users can convert images up to 50MB. Thirdly, the optimizer also provides you with Photoshop plugin for Windows and Mac.

Optimizilla

Optimizilla is an intelligent free online optimizer using the best combination of optimization and lossy compression algorithms. This tool wisely shrinks JPEG and PNG images to the minimum possible size keeping their quality high. Optimizilla makes it possible to upload up to 20 images. Perhaps this image optimizer’s unique feature lies in the instant preview. It allows you to compare an original image to the compressed one.

Moreover, you can click on thumbnails in a carousel to adjust the quality setting (for JPEGs) or color palette (for PNGs). Moreover, you can download ready images individually and in zip files. There’s only one thing to remember. Optimizilla deletes all the images you upload after an hour.

Shortpixel

Shortpixel is one more great free online image compressor. The main distinguishing feature of this tool is that it supports both image files (JPG, PNG, GIF) and PDF files. On the whole, the process of compression doesn’t differ from other image optimizers: download, compress, and get an optimized file. However, the number of files you can download is much more – up to 50 images! If you want to compress more than 50 images, you should register (Free) to get a quota of 100 images/month. Each image’s maximum file size must be not more than 10MB.

Gift of Speed

Even though Gift of Speed allows you to compress only JPG and PNG images to the smallest file size, it impresses with the diversity of other tools for improving your page speed. Let’s consider some of them:

• image optimization test to help you find the problems that make your site work slower;
• cashing test to check whether the files are cashed appropriately;
• broken requests test to find out broken images, links, scripts, etc.;
• HTTP request checker for reducing unnecessary requests and reduce page weight;
• other tools for GZIP, CSS, and JavaScript compression and optimization.

Compressor.io

Compressor.io is a handy online image compressor that enables you to reduce your image size with no loss in quality. To start with, this image compressor supports four file formats: JPEG, PNG, GIF, and SVG. Note that the file size limit is 10 MB. Next, it lets you choose between two types of compression: lossy and lossless. Then, Compressor.io suggests you up to 90% file size reduction. Finally, the process is as easy as pie. You should drag and drop your file or select one from your computer and wait for several seconds. Unfortunately, this online image compressor doesn’t allow bulk uploading.

Kraken

Kraken is one more ultra-fast online image optimization tool that will please you with the quality of the reduced images. Similar to Compressor.io, this image optimizer allows you to choose between lossless and lossy compression. Although you are free to upload an unlimited number of photos, each image file can’t exceed 1 MB. The distinctive feature of Kraken is that you can select the level of chroma subsampling, image quality, and the kinds of metadata you’d like to preserve. Moreover, you don’t have to wait till all your images are compressed. You can even close your browser and download the final files later. They are available for download for 12 hours after optimization in your Dropbox or ZIP file.

Please note that with this online image optimization tool, image resizing is available only for the pro subscription.

Resize Photos

Resize Photos is a fascinating free online photo tool for resizing and compressing your digital photos. The tool lets you work with the files of 5 following formats: JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP, and PSD. Alongside compression, Resize Photos enables you to apply various editing effects to your image, such as captions, borders, reflections, shadows, rounded corners, rotation, etc. This tool lets you choose the image width, quality, and output format via quality settings before starting the compression. Keep in mind that a higher quality setting results in larger file sizes. As a rule, the best output quality setting is somewhere between 60-80%.

Image Optimizer

This image optimizer offers you to optimize in seconds your GIFs, JPGs, and PNGs by downloading an image or specifying its URL. There is an opportunity to convert files to the same type or a different one, which is convenient if you need to change the format. Why is this tool on our list? In the beginning, it seems that there is nothing special, but we appreciate it by the variety of results it presents. Thus, you have a choice; after you click on Optimize button, you get four images with different quality (original/30/20/10), size, and savings(f.e. -3%/-7%/-17%) and decide which one will work better for your page.

Please note that the upload size limit is 2.86 MB.

Compressnow

There are two main benefits of using Compressnow:

• users can upload up to 10 images(JPG, JPEG, GIF, PNG), compress them, and then get a ZIP file containing optimized images;
• users decide on the compression level in %.

Regarding the size limit, it’s 9 Mb, which is quite enough for website owners. Please, pay attention to the fact that all the files will be deleted in 30 minutes.

Ezgif.Com

This Image Optimizer supports JPG and JPEG files with a max file size of 35MB. It offers three optimization methods according to your needs. First is a lossless optimization that saves image quality by removing some data and thumbnails. The second is size compression, and the third one is defining its quality from 1 to 100%. Also, it enables you to crop, resize, rotate images, add some effects or text, convert to GIF or WebP.

JPEGmini

JPEGmini grants you the opportunity of reducing image size by up to 80% without compromising quality. In fact, the JPEGmini algorithm fully imitates the perceptual qualities of the human visual system. It perfectly removes all redundancies and doesn’t create any visual artifacts in the process. To start the compression, you are to upload the image that needs optimization. The second step is to choose a compression level (from 0-99, with the default at 65) and pick the image width. Finally, you click on “Optimize Photo,” and that’s it! The only drawback of this free online image optimizer is clearly seen from its name. You can optimize nothing more but JPEGs.

The only thing to consider is the necessity to download free software as it’s no more an online tool.

Benefits of Image Optimization

Now it’s clear that images play an essential role in page loading speed, but that’s not all. There are other three main advantages of free image optimization. Let’s consider them in detail.

1. It improves the on-site user experience so that it’s convenient for visitors to navigate and find what they’re looking for.
2. By optimizing images, you also get content optimized for people and Google. Thus, you can add Alt attributes to the images in the admin panel and improve your SEO.
3. According to Google core web vitals, the bounce rate improves as your content loads faster than 2.5 seconds, and users spend more time on pages accordingly.

A Few Words in Conclusion

Do you feel that you need more information concerning image optimization? Then get acquainted with some more image optimization tips and tools to deepen your knowledge on the topic. By the way, optimizing your images for the web is not the only thing you can do to improve your website page speed and performance. If you aren’t a pro on this subject, you are welcome to learn how to boost your website page speed.

To cut a long story short, never forget to take care of your website page speed and performance. Use online image optimizers to prevent your website from overloading and enjoy the continuously increasing level of customer satisfaction.  For those needing to convert HEIC files, a reliable heic to jpg converter download can ensure compatibility and ease of use across various platforms.In case you don’t have time to manage this easy process, MotoCMS can help you with page speed optimization only for $39!