Compressing photos for blogs – free tools
We have been told we must compress photos for blogs and website use, but what should you use?
Options for compressing photos are to pay for a plugin that compresses photos automatically on upload. Or to do something a little more manually for free.
Option A Pay
Option B DIY
If you have money and no time, just get the paid shortpixel plugin and get someone to set it up properly. If have time and no money, look into the free option on shortpixel’s website or a standalone program.
Bulk image compressor like Mass image Compressor
How to set up MassImage comprssor
settings I use for average blogging if I don’t know if I’ll use the photo in a cover position or just a blog post I’ll set is at 1600 on the long edge. If I know the use is only for a portrait oriented photo and won’t be displayed very large I’ll do something like 1200px on the long edge. For cover photos/full screen use, I’ll do 1920px or 2000px on the long edge. Setting the compression at 45 seems to get the photo small enough without loosing too much detail. Most of the time this works, once in a while certain photos look bad and I have to adjust.
My goal is to keep photos under 300kbs
in the screenshot below are the settings I’m currently using
