: Save for web feature in Photoshop for image size reduction Save for web feature in Photoshop for image size reduction, would this be the simplest way for a beginner (like myself) to try and

@Pierce403

Yes, it most definitely does make a big difference. After using this feature I tend to stick the images into smush.it or kraken.io/ to squeeze out the last few drops.

To run a long side this, sorry if you already know these, you can minify your code - CSS and JS, using www.cssdrive.com/index.php/main/csscompressor/ and jslint.com/.

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@Carla748

Using Save For Web is definitely the best way to go, and it produces far smaller files than using Save As.

Some ways to reduce file size without changing the image dimensions:


Try different file types (JPEG, GIF, PNG). There's lots of cases where one will be better than the other.
For JPEG images, try different quality settings.
For GIF images, try different numbers of indexed colours.
For PNG8 images, try different numbers of indexed colours.
For PNG24 images, you could try utilities like ImageOptim.


You'll have to use your own eyes to judge if the results are acceptable. Most of those techniques (all but the last) reduce the visual quality of the image.

Please note: I'd recommend not altering the Image Size in Save For Web. It changes the exported image's dimensions. In general, this is not a desirable way to reduce the file size of user interface elements for a webpage, because it will actually alter the dimensions — images will then either appear too small for their purpose, or get scaled up and look really bad.

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@Speyer780

Yes. In many cases the Save for web feature will reduce your file sizes. This is because in addition to allowing you to change the quality of your image (for example, jpeg quality 10 to 100), it also strips out a lot of unnecessary (for web purposes) metadata from your images like camera model, time the photo was taken, white balance, and so on.

Using "save as" and adjusting the quality manually usually retains this information (assuming it's there to begin with) so you will usually not get as small file sizes as you would using "save for web".

For a detailed explanation, see this page.

You may also be interested in trying out Riot (Radical Image Optimization Tool--Windows only, I believe). When I'm sharing images with friends and I want to remove the metadata, I usually use this since it keeps the image in its original quality, and a photo from my digital camera that might have been 4MB drops down to under 1MB, just to give you an idea of how much metadata some pictures have.

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