How to Compress an Image Without Losing Too Much Quality

Most phone photos are larger than they need to be for a form, a message or a web page. Compressing means making the file smaller, usually by lowering the quality a little. The trick is to stop before the picture starts to look bad.

Step by step

1. Keep your original photo safe. Work on a copy, so you can start again if the result is too soft. 2. Open the Image Compressor and choose your image. 3. Start at 80% quality and compress it. 4. Look at the result at full size, not only as a small preview. Check faces, small text and edges. 5. If it looks fine and the file is still too large, try 70%. 6. If text starts to look blocky, go back to the higher quality version.

Which format should you choose?

For ordinary photos, JPEG is usually the smallest and looks natural. For a logo, a screenshot with text, or a picture with sharp lines, PNG or WebP keeps edges cleaner, but a photo saved as PNG can stay very large. WebP is a good middle choice in most modern browsers. If a form only accepts JPG, choose JPEG output even if your original was PNG.

Common mistakes

Do not compress the same JPEG many times, because each round throws away more detail. Do not shrink a picture to a tiny size and then enlarge it again, because the lost detail does not come back. And do not judge quality only from a small thumbnail: open the compressed image fully before you submit it.

Try it now: Image Compressor.