Image compressor settings that keep your photos looking good

Every image compressor has the same slider: quality, 1 to 100. And everyone drags it left, watches the file shrink, and wonders why their photo now looks like a watercolor.

The slider isn't the problem. Not knowing where to stop is.

The numbers that actually work

For JPG photos on a website: 80 to 85. That's the range where the file drops by half or more and nobody can see the difference. Below 70, flat areas like skies start showing blocky bands. Below 60, faces get waxy.

For WebP: you can go a little lower, around 75 to 80, because WebP's compression is more efficient. An 80-quality WebP often beats an 85-quality JPG on both size and looks.

For PNG: there's no quality slider because PNG is lossless. If your PNG is huge, the fix isn't a slider, it's switching formats.

Why "maximum compression" backfires

Compressors love to brag about 90% size reduction. What they don't show you is the photo at full size on a real screen. Aggressive compression murders fine detail first: hair, grass, fabric texture. The thumbnail looks fine. The full image looks like it was painted with a mop.

I compress for the largest size the image will actually be shown at. A 1200-pixel-wide blog image doesn't need the same care as a print file, but it still deserves better than 50% quality.

The two-pass habit

Here's what I do. First pass: convert to the right format (WebP for web photos, JPG for compatibility). Second pass: compress at 80-85. Format choice usually saves more bytes than the slider ever will.

Jiggle X Wiggle's free converter handles the format part. Pick WebP for the web, JPG when you need universal support, and let the format do the heavy lifting before you touch quality settings.

Practical tip: always compress a copy and compare it side by side with the original at full size before you delete anything. Zoom to 100% and look at edges and textures. If you can't spot the difference in 5 seconds, the setting is fine.