Images are usually the heaviest part of a web page, and upload forms often limit photos to a few hundred kilobytes. Understanding three settings — format, dimensions and quality — is all you need.
1. Pick the right format
- JPG — photos. Small files, adjustable quality.
- PNG — logos, screenshots, graphics with sharp edges or transparency. Lossless, so photos in PNG are very large.
- WebP — a modern format supported by all current browsers. Usually 25–35% smaller than JPG at the same visual quality.
2. Use sensible dimensions
A phone photo can be 4000 × 3000 pixels. Most websites display images at 800–1600 pixels wide. Uploading the full size wastes bandwidth. Common targets:
- Blog or article image: 1200–1600 px wide.
- Product photo: 1000–1200 px.
- Profile picture: 400–600 px square.
- Full-screen banner: 1920 px wide.
Use Resize image for exact dimensions, or the “maximum width” option in Compress image.
3. Choose the quality
For JPG and WebP, quality between 65% and 80% is almost always indistinguishable from the original on screen, while the file can be 5–10 times smaller. Go lower only for thumbnails.
A quick recipe
- Open Compress image.
- Add all your photos at once.
- Set quality to 75%, format WebP (or JPG if the site requires it), maximum width 1600.
- Download everything as a ZIP.
For online application forms
If a portal asks for “JPG, max 200 KB, 600 × 600 px”, first crop the photo square, then resize to 600 × 600, then compress at 70–80% as JPG. Check the size shown by PDFly before uploading.