The biggest benefit of lossy compression is that it significantly reduces the size of the image file. Benefits, Advantages, and Disadvantages of Lossy CompressionĪt this point, you may be wondering what the pros and cons of lossy compression are. This is leveraged for image compression as we compress some colors more than others. Our eyes have a different sensitivity to different colors. Images are great candidates for lossy compression because of the way our eyes work. However, our human eyes do not notice the difference between JPEG, GIF, PNG, or other formats. The most common lossy image formats are JPEG and GIF. The truth is, we use lossy image compression all the time on the web. In other words, no user will notice that your images are compressed (unless you compress the same image over and over). For other data types, such as images or video, you can compress it and present an “approximate” representation of the original data without losing its meaning.
Two types of image compression code#
One piece of bad data and your code can break. When optimizing data such as source code on a page, it’s critical to ensure that the compression doesn’t alter the code. The usual irreversibility of lossy compression begs the question: why should you use it? You’re in luck: With the Imagify WordPress plugin, you’ll be able to revert to your original pictures if you are not satisfied with the results. Once you have compressed an image this way, you can’t go back. If you’re asking if lossy compression is reversible, the answer is: no. Lossy compression means that the image size is reduced while some data from the original image file is eliminated. What Is Lossy Image Compression and How It Works Read the article, and you’ll learn everything you should know about the two image compression types.
It all boils down to which lossy or lossless algorithm is used to optimize each image.
Don’t worry: we’ve got you covered.īefore we get started, you should know that there is no single best format or “quality setting” for images. There are pros and cons to both, and you, as a website owner, should evaluate both before making a decision. You can choose two types of compression when optimizing your images: lossy and lossless compression. Reducing the size of your photos for the web can help you gain precious milliseconds of load time. If you are looking into optimizing your website’s performance, you will come across some performance techniques such as image compression.