Glossary · websites
What is Image compression?
Image compression is reducing the file size of an image so it downloads faster, with little or no visible loss of quality. It involves three steps that work together: resizing the image to the largest size it will actually be displayed at, choosing an efficient format such as WebP or AVIF instead of a large JPG or PNG, and setting the compression level sensibly. Images are usually the heaviest part of a web page, so compressing them is often the quickest speed improvement available. Most modern platforms and CDNs can resize and convert images automatically once set up.
What does Image compression mean for a business in Pakistan?
Pakistani business sites are often filled with photos straight from a phone camera or from the photographer's full-resolution folder, several megabytes each. On mobile data in the evening, a gallery of those can take a long time to appear. Compressing them costs nothing but the setup and makes the site usable for visitors in Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
A worked example
A Rawalpindi wedding photographer's portfolio page loads 24 photos at about 4 MB each, nearly 100 MB in total. Resizing each to 1,600 pixels wide, converting to WebP and lazy-loading those below the first screen brings the page to around 5 MB, with the first images visible in a couple of seconds.
Terms that go with this one
These come up in the same conversations and are worth reading together.
- LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)page load timeLargest Contentful Paint, or LCP, is the time from when someone starts loading a page to when the biggest piece of visible content, usually a hero…
- Core Web VitalsCore Web VitalsCore Web Vitals are three measurements Google uses to judge how a page feels to real visitors. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures loading,…
- CDN (content delivery network)CDNA content delivery network, or CDN, is a network of servers in many cities that keeps copies of a website's files, such as images, scripts,…
- Alt textimage ka alt textAlt text is a short written description attached to an image in a page's code. Screen readers read it aloud to people who cannot see the image,…
- Responsive designmobile friendly websiteResponsive design means building one website whose layout adapts to the screen it is viewed on, so the same page works on a small phone, a tablet and…
Image compression — quick answers
What does Image compression mean?
Image compression is reducing the file size of an image so it downloads faster, with little or no visible loss of quality. It involves three steps that work together: resizing the image to the largest size it will actually be displayed at, choosing an efficient format such as WebP or AVIF instead of a large JPG or PNG, and setting the compression level sensibly.
Image compression ko Urdu mein kya kehte hain?
امیج کمپریشن — though in practice almost everyone in Pakistan says "image ka size kam karna". Pakistani business sites are often filled with photos straight from a phone camera or from the photographer's full-resolution folder, several megabytes each.
Why does Image compression matter for a business in Pakistan?
Pakistani business sites are often filled with photos straight from a phone camera or from the photographer's full-resolution folder, several megabytes each. On mobile data in the evening, a gallery of those can take a long time to appear. Compressing them costs nothing but the setup and makes the site usable for visitors in Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
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