How To Reduce Image Size Without Losing Image Quality in Photoshop
How To Reduce Image Size Without Losing Image Quality in Photoshop
Or : Why are my photoshop jpgs so ridiculously huge!?!
Straight out of the gate using photoshop you’ll notice one thing: Saving JPG files in photoshop are HUGE. Waste of space. Frustratingly bloated, and for no seeming purpose. In fact, when it comes to saving and exporting small jpg files and compressing files for web… its a very confusing reality that the world’s most popular photo editing software is so… Terrible
Don’t worry – This post isn’t just a rant on the inefficiencies of photoshop. We actually have a helpful solution – Watch below to learn how to reduce image file size in photoshop, the easy way!
It turns out that photoshop values image quality over file size efficiency. While on the one hand this makes a lot of sense for photographers and graphic designers who want the best possible results, it can be a little absurd when you set the photoshop quality slider to “low” and your file size is still 10X larger than it should be!
Point in case – This image here is 1920×1080 pixels, and photoshop is saving the jpg out at 2.7mb.
But when we slide our quality all the way to medium – Photoshop is still saving the jpg out at a whopping 2.5mb! But it gets better….
Now we try to take it ALL the way down to 1/10 for quality… And STILL 2.5mb! What gives?!
But… Maybe that image just has to be that big or the quality would suck?
No, unfortunately its just photoshop being absurd. If we take our image and compress it using optizilla.com, look how far down it takes our file sizes!
BAM! 94% Smaller – And the quality is STILL awesome! Optizilla is a great tool, especially for batch image compressing. But wouldn’t it be great if photoshop exported my files for web ALREADY?!
So Why Is Photoshop Exporting My JPGs SO flipping BIG?!
Well to be honest, we don’t know why photoshop is so dumb at saving images and why jpgs in photoshop are so much bigger than they need to be. BUT there is another far more effective option. Its hidden in your export settings, and its called Save To Web (Legacy). Its labelled legacy because its technically from an older version of photoshop, but they’ve kept it in there because it was so popular for photographers and people wanting to get smaller web size images from photoshop. Lets give that a try!
Okay.. Now lets compare our old image and our new one! Thats 95% smaller!
Now you’re probably thinking… Sure it makes it smaller, but what about the quality loss? The new image probably looks blurry and crappy…
You’d be surprised! Sure, when you zoom WAAAAY in you can see a SMALL reduction in sharpness and detail… With over 60% of web traffic being viewed on a MOBILE PHONE… In reality, you’ll never see the difference.
