10 Best Online Image Optimizers

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Girl with a digital camera.Whether you're a hobby photographer, web designer, or a casual web surfer, images are an integral part of published web content. There are billions of images hosted on the Internet with varying sizes and quality. Imagine, if all of them are web optimized, how much Internet bandwidth will be saved per year. Generally, images are compressed with various standard algorithms to reduce their size. You can easily optimize and compress your images either through desktop applications or with the help of online image optimizers. For general usage, I prefer the latter option because you can quickly reduce the size of the image without leaving the web browser. All such optimizers are very lightweight and work perfectly. I've handpicked some of the best online image optimization tools one can use to publish compressed images on their websites. Unless the image is really complex with transparency, save it in JPG format to get the best results. Do once try all of the image optimizing options mentioned below and select the best tool.

Girl with a digital camera. Depending on the percentage of reduction in size, the quality of an image may deteriorate. All standard image editing software support some kind of image compression options which can be fine-tuned by the user. Now, let's check some of the best such options available on the web.

1. TinyPNG: The very first entry in this list is the one that I use for my own blog photos. Though this service uses a lossy compression technique, surprisingly the optimized image is nearly as good as the original one. And, this image quality retention is achieved after up to 70% to 80% reduction in file size.

Though this service also supports optimization of JPG files, I'll recommend using PNG format to get the best results. If you're a self-hosted WordPress user, a powerful plugin is also available for the same.

2. Dynamic Drive Image Optimizer: The second optimizer included in this list compresses 3 common and popular image formats viz., GIF, JPG, and PNG. The uploaded image size shouldn't exceed 2.8 MB which is good enough for most websites and blogs. One can also specify the output image format.

If needed, this tool can output 6 different optimized versions of the source image to choose from. Apart from uploading the image from the computer, one can also provide a direct URL of the source image file.

3. Image Optimizer: This is yet another user-friendly and powerful online image optimizer. You can upload and optimize almost any popular image format. One can optimize large images too through this tool. Maximum thresholds for both image width and height can also be specified before optimization.

If you're not comfortable with the online service, you can download the desktop application to optimize the images without any Internet connection. I'll prefer their web version to get watermark free images.

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4. Web Resizer: This image optimizer provides lot of options to tweak the appearance of the optimized photo. There's no limitation of the image file format and the file size of up to 10 MB can be optimized. Not just the photo width and height, but it also enables you to rotate the optimized image, quite easily.

Image quality too can be manually fine-tuned as per your needs. It also enables you to customize contrast and color saturation to change photo shades and color intensity of the optimized image.

5. Smush.it: If you're running a self-hosted WordPress website, try this powerful image optimization plugin. If used, all the uploaded images are automatically optimized keeping your website run blazingly fast. It has a very large user base with extremely good plugin ratings. Do try it once on your website.

It is fully compatible with several popular image gallery plugins making both management and optimization process, a cakewalk. The free version is useful and good enough for most blogging needs.

6. Imagify: You can experience big compression ratios with acceptable quality degradation when optimizing images through this website. There's a 2 MB limit for the maximum file size if you're using its free option. I also liked the smooth web interface of this optimization tool which is very easy-to-use.

After optimization, apart from downloading the file to the desktop, one also gets a direct link to the image which remains active for 24 hours. Logged in users can also keep the EXIF information, intact.

7. Optimizilla: If you're looking to optimize images in bulk, try this tool which enables you to queue up to 20 images at a time. The quality of all the queued images can be fine-tuned before you submit them for the optimization process. It uses a user-friendly slider control to set custom image compression level.

While tweaking the image quality, a side by side comparison is done with the original source file so that the decision can be made easily. It's ideal for compressing secondary images when quality is not an issue.

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8. Kraken: This impressive and option-packed image optimizer is one of my favorites included in this list. It can compress and optimize images directly imported from popular cloud storage services like Google Drive, Box, and Dropbox. A zipped archive of all images can also be uploaded for optimization.

Its 3 different optimization modes cater the needs of a layman as well as of an expert. The expert mode offers several optimization options to get the desired results. The free plan has a size limit of about 1 MB.

9. Compressor.io: This image optimization tool offers both lossy and lossless compression techniques. It supports 4 popular image formats commonly used on the web. The maximum file size limit is capped at 10 MB which is quite generous for most images used on a typical website. You must try it once.

Once optimized, it shows the comparison between the source and the output file. An optimized file can be saved in 3 different ways. Apart from saving it locally, you can send it to Google Drive or Dropbox.

10. CheetahO: This optimizer supports both JPG and PNG file formats with a file size cap of 4 MB. Compressed image can either be downloaded directly or you can grab it in a zip file. It is also available in the form of a WordPress plugin. Power users can also use its API to optimize images quickly in bulk.

If you want to go pro, this optimizer offers very affordable plans with loads of features. The free plan is ample for small to medium-sized blogs. The compression ratio is quite impressive for complex images.