In my last post I had a ‘Special Tip’ at the bottom. I got a lot of emails about this feature so I want to clarify what these new features in the preferences can be used for.
There are 3 image optimization settings here;
1. JPEG Image Quality
This option controls the optimization level of your JPEG files. The smaller this number, the smaller the JPEG files will be, however the lower the quality of your JPEG image files. The best bet is to keep it at it’s default of 80%, unless the JPEG image quality is very important to you. For example if you include high quality photos. But keep in mind, the 80% optimization usually provides very high quality images anyways
2. Optimize PNG Files
This option will reduce the file size of your PNG files without affecting the quality. This is a fantastic option to reduce your PNG images by up to 40%, sometimes even more. However, it does have the draw back of slowing down publishing since each PNG needs to be run through an optimizer.
3. Use Color Profile
This is a complex option but an important one. All web browser’s and devices (such as desktop, laptops, tablets and mobile devices) have different settings based on colors they can actually display to you. What you see on one device may not be the exact same color you see on another device. This all has to do with color profiles which can be modified from your system settings.
By using this option, you guarantee that your images will, for the most part, appear the same on all devices or browsers (or close to it). However, including this information increases the size of your images. If making sure your images look the same on all devices is important to you, keep this option selected. If slight variations in the color of images is OK, you can unselect this option to reduce the file size of your images.
You won’t see large differences with this option turned off, but if you are a professional photographer you will definitely notice it. If you are trying to match your logo image color to your page background color for example, without this option selected the colors may appear different in your browser, or on another device.
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