I have downloaded images from our old site for use in our new site (using Source. Of course I may not use all of these). There are, currently 293 of these and, whilst most of them, fall into the under 75kb there are another that range from 80kb through 1.8mb. What is the best way to optimize these files so that they will load quickly and, furthermore, what software would be best to use? I do have Photoshop if that is of any use,
thanking you in advance.
Sr. Sabina
look at BatchImageResizer its a really good app for this , plus you rename them for seo purposes. All in a few clicks. it changes all the images at once.
As a general guide you can resize your images into big, medium and smaller. If your biggest images will be limited by the width of the site page, then use 1200px. For images that may fill a column use 800px. Images that don’t fill their container edge to edge could be resized to 300px. Note that a 800px image is not that much bigger in file size than a 600px image.
If your images are jpg, then the very best way to resize, create multiple sizes and optimise is to use jpegMiniPro which you could setup and drag all 293 images into and it will do everything. Using Photoshop to do this to 293 images could take forever.
Alternatively the free jpegMini will do up to a limit of 20 images per day - at least that’s how it used to work.
If you have a mix of png and jpg images you could use one of the many resize apps such as Super Resize to resize and then drop all images into the free imageOptim to optimise both png and jpg images.
BTW that 1.8mb image is way too big. Ideally aim for nothing bigger than about 300kb for the biggest image on any page.
Thank you for that information. All knowledge at this stage is useful.
I use PhotoBulk but you don’t actually need to buy an app to do this. Here is a way to do it for free using one simple command:
Wow, isn’t that cool!
Are there any downsides to this?
its a pretty neat way to resize, and immediate. Thanx
It can do a lot more than just width as well. Downsides - it does what you tell it so it could stretch images if you put small images in and expect bigger ones out. You can get around this with a script but at that point you would probably resort to an app.
You can also do height and renaming etc with it. Just look up MacOS sips ((scriptable image processing system)
A lot of great tips here.
The only thing i’ll add is that if you are using the Source Image stack then it can take up to 4 widths of the same image. This is useful to serve up appropriate images based on device size. If going this way I’d recommend 600px for small, 900px for medium and 1200px for large. If using in a container that doesn’t have a max-width then I’d maybe add in a 1800px or 2000px image for XL.
Alternatively, if 1 image size will suffice just add it to the small image well/link in the stack.
Interested in Photobulk @tav.
I regularly, like 4/5 times a week, need to update clients galleries. They share the albums with me typically via iPhoto (now Photo), I download them, open them in Photoshop CS6 and run a pre-defined batch process. This process typically colour balances, reduces size to a set max-width/height and saves at a pre-determined quality level.
It’s a long process, made worse by old CS6 having more than a few grumbles along the way.
Is this sort of automation possible with Photobulk do you know? I’ve read their site, but it’s the usual strapline nonsense with no real details on what’s possible.
Ta.
I would just use Automator or a script to do that. PhotoBulk is quick and easy but if you wanted to get the files, resize and then put them back you would need a script.
Photobulk is a great tool I always use for resizing but their compression isn’t the best. After I’ve run images through PB I add them to tinypng.com There’s a limit of 20 (I think?) per session but no daily limits.
Thank you all for you advice. In the end, I went with Aidy’s Photobulk and Tinypng. All files are now well under 75kb. Truly I’m indebted to you.