Images taken from smartphones can easily weight up to 5 MB and in no time you get will memory full error. Or let say you have a huge collection of images on your computer that you would like to upload on web.
Now, this huge files size may look good at first but it create three major problems.
- Insufficient storage left in smartphones
- Takes too much time for cloud backup like uploading on Google photos.
- If you upload this pictures on your blog, it will take more time to load and eat unnecessary bandwidth.
And the solution to this is — Image compression. There are a few software that can reduce the image size while maintaining the image resolution and quality (or at least an average user will not 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 and camcorder etc. The original images together weight 10.4 MB.
Compress Bulk Images
Windows
I find file optimizer (26.3 MB) a perfect tool for compressing images. The interface is plain. Simply drag and drop your images and click on the optimize all files on the top. And that’s it, the software will automatically replace your older images with newer (compressed) ones.
Verdict: Clean and simple software. However, it doesn’t save much space. The total size of images before and after compression is 10.4 and 9.3 MB i.e. only 1 MB saved or roughly 10% compression. Though there is no distinguishable difference in image quality.
Mac
ImageOptin is a free tool for MAC to reduce the image size without losing the quality. I use this tool all the time and it works great. Like FileObtimizer, you have to do is drag and drop your image and it automatically compress the images on the source location.
Verdict: It compress 11 MB images to 9.8 MB i.e. roughly 13% compression. However in general usage I have seen it easily compressing up to 30% (usually for png). Off course image quality remains unchanged to a human eye.
Android
Cram claims to reduce file size about 60%. And unlike the above two, cram give you an option like– whether you want to save newer optimized image to new folder or auto replace the existing one. Plus, it also has a built-in sharing option via gmail or other apps- which is nice.
Verdict: Does what it claims. Within few seconds, cram optimizes the original 10.4 MB images to only 3.5 MB i.e. 60% compression. And I didn’t find any difference in image quality. Highly recommended.
Wordpress
If  you are a blogger and using Wordpress as your CMS then use EWWW Image Optimizer plugin. Once installed this plugin will automatically compress all the images you upload thereafter. Thus making sure your images loads faster and you save bandwidth.
Verdict: Images size after compression is 9.6 MB i.e roughly 10% compression rate. However, I usually see 30 -40% compression when I upload screenshots or images edited from photoshops.
Web
If you just want to compress a picture or two and don’t want to download a third-party software then try compressor.io — an online image compressor. There is also an option to save your images directly to Google drive or Dropbox, so you don’t have to upload images twice.
Verdict: Compression rate is good and maintains the image quality as well. It compresses the 10.4 MB images to only 3.7 MB i.e. more than 60 percent compression. However you can only upload one image at a time, so not ideal for compressing bulk images.
Top Image Edited from Pixabay.
