Skip to main content Screen Reader Website Version

Understanding Image Optimization

Image optimization is complicated and a multi-tiered process that takes months of study and practice.

Just kidding. It’s easy.

First, make sure you’re images aren’t huge. Most digital devices take pictures in high resolutions and most stock photos come that way. Always size your images to the exact size they’re going to be online. If you’re using relative widths with a responsive design (eg 100%, 90%,) then size it to the max width you’re using and consider using media queries to  scale down the image if possible for mobile devices and tablets.

Second throw your images through an optimizer to reduce their overall “weight”. This won’t affect image quality most often and will reduce the KB of your image by up to 95%. So a 100KB image becomes more like 5KB. This is significant. The best image optimizer (free) on the market it RIOT. http://luci.criosweb.ro/riot/ RIOT is easy to use and does a great job on jpegs … not so much on transparent png’s. Still it is very useful and best of all, free.

Ultimately, that is it. Size your images and run them through an optimizer …. aaaaaand…. you’re done. Simple. Livewire.

More Web Design Blog Content

JSON and PHP

Here at Livewire, Gainesville Web Design headquarters, we have had a couple of projects recently that allowed us to work with JSON and PHP. Initially it may seem a bit strange for PHP experts to want to embed javascript functionality in their code base but the two work

Review: Google Chrome – StayFocusd ★★★★★

We. Love. This. Chrome extension. Warning: It’s brutal. Stayfocusd is essentially a task manager, not as in manage what task is next, but keeps you focused on your tasks at hand. It blocks websites that waste your time and keep you distracted through a time limit feature. You

What we’ve been up to lately

Here’s what’s been going on at Livewire in the last few weeks – because, well, why not? It’s a blog ,isn’t it? Finishing up the LDM iphone app – which has been a big project that has presented us with some unique challenges. The Android version is likely

New Beginnings: Mcgriff WIlliams Insurance

New clients start today: Mcgriff Williams Insurance has decided to start a new campaign for online insurance quotes. We’ll be providing a key marketing role with their new website: INSURENCY.com They have the very latest in online quotes and are attempting to break into a heavily saturated market

The Flour Pot Bakery has a new website.

NEW!! Sally is one of a kind and so is her business. She really takes the time to put out a quality product and we wanted to give her that same high quality standard with her website that she is used to. FPB has some fantastic bread –

Review: Total Cache WordPress Plugin ★★★★

An easy plugin for WordPress that does all your caching for you automatically. What is caching? A cache essentially takes a screenshot of your page and keeps it in local memory. When that page is called (by a user visiting it) then it is called up from the