Image Tools
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Developer ToolsHow to Compress an Image Without Losing Quality
You can make a photo much smaller and still keep it looking good. The trick is knowing which setting to move and which to leave alone.
A phone photo can be 5MB while a form accepts 100KB. Here is why photos are so large and the quickest way to shrink them.
Modern phone cameras take pictures with 12 to 50 million pixels. That is wonderful for printing, but far too much for a website, a chat or an application form.
What makes a file large
- Pixels: more width and height means more data.
- Quality setting: higher quality keeps more detail and uses more space.
- Format: PNG files are usually much larger than JPG for photos.
- Busy backgrounds: trees, patterns and crowds need more data than a plain wall.
The quickest fix
- Open Reduce Image Size in KB.
- Choose your photo.
- Type the size you need in KB. For 1MB type 1024.
- Press Compress and download.
Common limits and what they are used for
- 20KB and 50KB: signatures and small photo fields.
- 100KB and 200KB: passport photos, ID uploads and many exam forms.
- 500KB and 1MB: documents and general uploads.
If the result looks too soft
A very small limit on a big photo forces the tool to lower quality a lot. Crop the picture first so the subject fills the frame, then compress. You can also read our full guide on compressing an image to 200KB.
Try it now: Image Compressor
Compress images to 20KB, 100KB, 200KB or 500KB with a quality slider.
Open Image Compressor