Sunday, 17 July 2022 15:21

How to Optimize Photos for Websites: Everything You Need to Know

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There's a reason why the job outlook for web developers is expected to increase by 13% over the next decade. The realm of website design can feel out-of-reach for those without much experience.

Many newcomers struggle with seemingly simple tasks, like knowing how to optimize photos for websites. The good news is that you don't need to hire a developer to optimize your photos.

You can do it entirely by yourself. How? By reading this business website design article! In it, we'll quickly walk you through everything you need to know about website photo optimization.

Compromise Between Compression and File Size

When optimizing your business website photos, you always need to walk a line between compression rate and file size. If your compression rate is super high, then that means your photos won't take up a lot of space.

While that means your site will be faster, it also means the images will look low-quality. Similarly, a low compression rate will result in high-quality images that take up a lot of storage.

We recommend settling on a medium compression rate. That way, you get the best of both worlds.

Choose the Right File Format

There are typically three types of file formats you will encounter when it comes to photos and websites. They include JPEGs, GIFs, and PNGs. The best website image format will depend on what image you're working with.

If your image has a lot of color in it, then your best option is a JPEG. This type of file comes with both lossless and lossy optimization. That means you can easily adjust the color balance. GIFs, on the other hand, only use 256 colors.

This makes them best suited for animation. Lastly, there are PNGs. Photos in this file format are higher quality, but they're also larger. That makes them ideal for simple images that don't use a lot of colors.

They're also good for photos that you need to edit heavily. For example, we recommend PNGs if you need to remove background from an image.

Reduce Image Size

As we mentioned, the smaller your images are, the less space they'll take up. So, how do you reduce image size? It depends on the editing platform you're using.

For example, if you're using Photoshop, then go to Image and click on Adjust Size.

However, if you're using a different editor, like Ribbet, you should click the Resize option. Plenty of free editors out there make it easy to reduce image size.

Appreciate Learning About How to Optimize Photos for Websites? Keep Exploring

We hope this article helped you learn how to optimize photos for websites. As you can see, it's pretty easy to tackle this problem yourself.

But if you're having trouble, then consider some of the software that optimizes the images for you.

Do you want more articles about web design? We have dozens of similar articles like it on our site so keep exploring to find them.