Compress Bulk Images Without Losing Quality.
Images captured from smartphones can easily weigh up to 5MB and you will immediately get a memory full error. Or let’s say you have a huge collection of images on your computer that you want to upload to the Internet.
This huge file size may look good at first, but it poses three main problems.
- Smartphones don’t have enough storage space.
- It takes too long to back up to the cloud, for example uploading photos to Google.
- If you upload these images to your blog, it will take longer to upload and use unnecessary bandwidth.
And the solution to that is image compression. There are several programs that can reduce image size while maintaining image resolution and quality (or at least the average user won’t notice any difference in quality).
To find out which software is the best, I tested 5 images taken from different sources like smartphones, digital cameras, camcorders, etc. The original images together are 10.4 MB.
Image collage compression
Windows
I find the File Optimizer (26.3 MB) ideal for compressing images. The interface is simple. Just drag and drop the images and click optimize all files at the top. And that’s it, the program will automatically replace your old images with new (compressed) ones.
Verdict: Clean and simple software. However, this doesn’t save much space. The total size of the images before and after compression is 10.4 and 9.3 MB, which means that only 1 MB, or roughly 10% compression, is retained. Although there is no noticeable difference in image quality.
Mac
ImageOptin is a free MAC tool to reduce image size without losing quality. I use this tool all the time and it works great. As with FileObtimizer, you just need to drag and drop the image and it will automatically compress the images to their original location.
Verdict: It compresses images from 11MB to 9.8MB, which is roughly 13% compression. However, in normal use, I’ve seen it easily shrink to 30% (usually for png). Of course, for the human eye, the image quality remains unchanged.
Android
Crum claims to reduce the file size by about 60%. And unlike the two above, cram gives you that ability – whether you want to save a newer optimized image to a new folder or automatically replace an existing one. Plus, it also has a built-in sharing option through Gmail or other apps, which is nice.
Verdict: Does what it claims. Within a few seconds, cram will optimize the original 10.4 MB images to 3.5 MB, i.e. 60% compression. And I didn’t notice any difference in image quality. Highly recommended.
WordPress
If you are a blogger using WordPress as your CMS, use the EWWW Image Optimizer plugin. Once installed, this plugin will automatically compress all images that you then upload. This way, make sure your images load faster and you save bandwidth.
Verdict: The size of the images after compression is 9.6 MB, which is approximately 10% compression ratio. However, I usually see 30-40% compression when uploading screenshots or images edited from Photoshop.
the Internet
If you just want to compress one or two images and don’t want to download third-party software, try Compressor.io, an online image compressor. There’s also the option to save images directly to Google Drive or Dropbox so you don’t have to upload images twice.
Verdict: The compression ratio is good, while maintaining the image quality. It compresses 10.4 MB images to 3.7 MB, i.e. over 60% compression. However, you can only upload one image at a time, so not ideal for compressing bulk images. Top image edited from Pixabay.