As the camera capabilities of devices grow, image sizes have generally grown recently. And larger the size of the image, the more difficult it gets to load on devices. But you just not need full-sized images every time. There are many compression techniques available that can scale down or reduce the size of your images without sacrificing the quality. Google offers a tool called Squoosh, a powerful image compression tool that runs right from your browser and can help you reduce the size of your images. It supports many advanced and modern encoders such as MozJPEG and WebP.
Squoosh Online Image Compression tool from Google
The app’s aim is to make images load faster on web pages. Reducing the image’s size is the right direction to take. The app runs entirely from the browser, even though it carries heavy operations in the background.
Using Squoosh is easy. You can upload or simply drag and drop an image inside the application. If you just want to test it out, you can choose one of the default images available. Once the image is uploaded, you’ll be taken to the next screen, where you can adjust the options and compress your image.
Something unique to Squoosh is that it works in real-time. The changes are reflected as soon as you start adjusting options. There are two identical preview panes to compare your image with its other compressed/uncompressed variants. By default, the left pane would display your original image.
In every pane, there is a dialog box that tells you the actual size of the image being previewed. This lets you easily compare sizes between the two variants. The tool can also calculate the net percentage difference in size of both images for a better sense of comparison.
The tool offers quite a few options. The first one is Resize. You can resize your images by entering new dimensions in the text boxes that follow. There is also an option to maintain the aspect ratio, and you can even decide the resize method.
The second feature that Squoosh offers is a Reduce palette. You can reduce the number of colors and adjust dithering according to your image and see if it affects the size of the image.
The last option the tool offers is quality adjustment. You can adjust the slider to achieve the desired quality and image size.
Squoosh just does not stop here; there is an additional checkbox that will enable Advanced Options for you. Don’t be surprised if you get advanced and technical terms under advanced options. You can adjust advanced settings if you understand them or just let the tool do it for you.
Once you’ve adjusted all the settings, a download button is adjacent to the image’s size. Click that button to download your compressed image and you are done.
Squoosh is a great tool overall. You can use it to compress all your pictures before posting them anywhere on the Internet. The reduced size of images ensures less loading time and improves the overall browsing experience. Plus, the tool offers a good set of features, which makes it a complete package. Also, the real-time editing experience is unique and gives this tool a fresh outlook. Go here to use Squoosh.
