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How to reduce the size of a JPG, JPEG file [instruction]

Good day!

Many JPG files take up a lot of space, often tens of megabytes (for example, high-quality photographs or scans).

And in a number of cases, one has to face one very interesting task - reducing the file size (say, to upload it to various Internet services, where there are size restrictions, or to write a collection of photos to various drives).

In general, (globally) to reduce the weight of the JPG, you can resort to several methods:

  1. reduce the size in width and height (for each picture it is measured in pixels, for example, 800x600). Of course, with this operation, the quality of the picture is reduced;
  2. trimming the edges. If you have uneven edges in the photo (say), or part of the picture can be cropped as not informative, then due to this, you can also significantly reduce the file weight (this operation is often called cropping) ;
  3. decrease in quality. When saving a JPG file, you can specify the desired quality: if you move the slider to the minimum, the file size can become significantly smaller! Note that in some cases it is possible to reduce the file weight by 10-30%, while the "eye" will not see any deterioration in the picture!
  4. combined method. When a photo / scan is processed at once by all of the above methods.

Actually, in this article I will consider the tools (programs and services) that will help you complete this task. This will turn out to be a kind of mini-instruction. 👌

And so, to the point ...

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Tools to reduce JPG file size

Paint

To start Paint: press the combination Win + R, in the "Run" window enter the command mspaint, click OK.

One of the most famous programs for working with graphic files (because it is built into almost all versions of Windows).

If you rarely process photos, pictures and graphs. files - in principle, Paint's capabilities should be enough for you (although, of course, in functionality it is far from other tools).

For example, I took a regular photo from nature and opened it in Paint (size about 2.2 MB, see screenshot below).

Original photo (open in Paint)

Reducing photo width / height

And so, this is the first thing that can be done, and what significantly affects the file weight. Please note that the original photo is in a resolution of 2048 by 1333 pixels, see the screenshot above (this is above the HD format).

In Paint to reduce the size of the graph. file - click on the tool "Image / Resize" ... See example. 👇

Change the width, height of the photo

Next, you can specify the new file size in percent or pixels. In my example below, the size is 800 by 520 pixels.

New pixel dimensions

Please note that after changing the width and height of the picture, to see how the size has changed, you need to save it (I will do this in the next step).

Trimming (Selecting an Area to Save)

Often there are unnecessary elements in the photo (especially around the edges, which it would be very desirable to remove: this will improve the quality of the photo, and also reduce its weight).

Paint has a tool for this. "Select" (see example below).

Image - highlight

An important point: you need to select the area that remains! See the box in the example below: anything outside of the box will be deleted!

Frame

Once highlighted, click on "Image / Crop" ... All "unnecessary" will be removed from the picture.

Cropping unnecessary area

Then you just have to resave the photo: "File / Save As / JPEG Image".

Save as JPEG

Outcomes

Please note that the original photo was 2.2 MB in size, now only 34 KB! Those. even with such simple actions, you can significantly save space - by 100 percent! (where required and justified).

Was 2.2 MB, now - 34 KB

About Paint:

  1. Pros: already built into Windows; very simple and reliable tool.
  2. Cons: Poor functionality, basically nothing but cropping, cropping and changing the width / height.

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Photo-MASTER [change photo size + enhancements]

Officer. website: //photo-master.com/

The photo is opened in the Photo-MASTER program (as an example)

A specialized and very powerful program for processing photos, pictures. Allows you to easily and quickly not only resize JPG, but also apply various interesting effects: change brightness, remove "red" eyes, add sharpness, etc.

Moreover, this program is focused on working with novice users: i.e. all actions are performed as simply as possible (unlike other graph. editors).

Change width and height

To change the size of an open photo in "Photo-MASTER" just click on the tool "File / Resize and Save" (see the screen below 👇).

File - resize and save

Then you can immediately specify the new size in pixels (by the way, the program has presets for social networks, various types of monitors, etc.), and click "Save" (interpolation also affects the quality and size of the photo).

In general, it's as simple and fast as that!

New photo sizes

As for the resulting file weight, it was reduced by about 8-9 times (which, you see, is pretty good, considering that we did not crop the edges at all).

It was - it is now (editing in Photo-MASTER)

Trimming the edges

This operation is also quite simple in "Photo-MASTER". First, click on the tab "Instruments" , and then from the menu on the right, select "Cropping" .

Tools - Crop

Next, select the area that will be left and click the button "Apply" (everything that was outside the frame will be deleted!).

Area selection - apply

Effects

Photo-MASTER is also very good in that, in addition to cropping and changing the width / height of the image, you can significantly improve its color rendition, add interesting effects to make the photo sparkle with new colors.

All effects are collected in the section "Effects" : just select one of the options in the menu on the right, and it will be immediately applied to the photo. In the preview you will see how the photo will change: it is convenient in the sense that you can immediately check out whether such an effect will work, even before saving.

In addition, I recommend using the "Improvements" tab, it also has a lot of useful tricks ...

Selecting Effects

For example, after 20-30 sec. experiments with photography, it was possible to significantly improve its brightness and color rendition. Pay attention to the screenshot below: what happened "before" and what happened to the photo "after" the effects were applied. The difference, in my opinion, is on the face!

Before applying effects and after

Outcomes:

  1. Photo-MASTER is a very simple and effective tool (even those people who have just started to get acquainted with a PC can quickly figure it out);
  2. the file size can be reduced tenfold!
  3. The program has tools to improve the photo: you can add brightness, improve the background, add captions, and in general - revive the photo so that it sparkles with new colors!

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Photoshop

Official website: //www.adobe.com/

Photoshop (program logo)

Professional and one of the most powerful graphics editors. Allows you to perform almost "any" editing and manipulation of photos / pictures.

However, it should be noted that working with this program is quite "difficult" (especially for beginners). Even performing some simple functions requires some skill. Below, I will go over a few tools in Photoshop for solving our current task (i.e. reducing the JPG weight).

Change the width, height of the picture

And so, to change the resolution of the picture in Photoshop, select the tool "Image / Image Size" (you can just press the keyboard shortcut Alt + Ctrl + I).

Image Size - resize the file

Next, specify the desired dimensions in pixels (by the way, you can set it in centimeters or inches) and click OK.

Width, Height - width, height

Trimming the edges

Pay attention to the tools presented on the left side panel. Select the cropping icon.

Then you can move the frame from any edge of the picture (after pressing the Enter key, the picture will be cropped).An example is shown below.

Trimming the edges

About saving

Photoshop has several options for saving a picture. I recommend that you pay attention to the "Save for Web" option.

We save the picture for posting on the network

Further, using the side menu, you can adjust the parameters that directly affect the degree of compression of the picture (you can select the quality in percentage, number of colors, etc.).

By the way, in the preview you can immediately estimate the degree of compression and the size of the resulting file (see the screen below 👇).

Thumbnails with file sizes depending on the compression ratio

In general, everything is quite convenient - you can adjust the photo to a specific size.

Conclusions:

  1. Photoshop is the most versatile graph tool. files (at the same time, quite complex - not every beginner decides to deal with it for the sake of some simple actions);
  2. there are many options for compressing * the file (at the expense of quality reduction).

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ACDSee

Developer site: //www.acdsee.com/en/index

Alternative programs for viewing photos and pictures (viewers)

One of the most popular viewers! Allows you to view any media files (videos, photos, scans, etc.), edit them, create various collections, etc. In general, a very multifunctional program, including in relation to our question ...

And so after you have opened any photo, to change it - click "Editor" (see the screen below 👇).

Editor (start changing the picture in ACDSee)

Further in the menu on the left there will be everything you need to edit the image: resizing, cropping, rotating, applying various effects, adjusting the brightness, etc.

Resize (clickable)

For example, if you click on "Change of size" a submenu will appear on the left, prompting you to enter a new file width / height.

Setting the desired size

As for cropping (trimming the edges), it is performed in the same way as the previous operation.

Cropping (ACDSee)

After all the changes to the image have been done, go to the menu "File / Save As ..." .

Save as

Further, before saving, you can adjust the quality parameters and the compression option (to do this, click on the button "Parameters" , see example below 👇).

Configuring save options

Next, select the compression ratio (quality) and the optimization option (for example, optimize Huffman).

We indicate the quality

In general, after that you can save the picture. After some simple manipulations (described above), my 2.2 MB photo began to weigh only 148 KB.

ACDSee - "before" processing, and "after"

Conclusions:

  1. it is convenient to work with the program: immediately while viewing a photo, you can select any of them and compress to the desired size;
  2. also ACDSee has all the most necessary tools for editing and processing JPG files;
  3. the program is quite friendly to novice users;
  4. minus: the program is paid (for some versions there is no crack).

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Online services

Pros: no need to install anything; you can work with them from any device; simplicity of work; allow you to achieve max. compression without degrading image quality.

Cons: you need constant access to the Internet; you cannot upload private personal photos to the services (if you do not want them to suddenly appear somewhere ...).

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//imagecompressor.com/ru/

Simple and convenient service for compressing photos. It is enough to download the desired file, as it will be compressed in just a matter of seconds. In the menu on the left, you can manually adjust the quality of the output file, and immediately see on the preview how it will look. See example below. 👇

Compression results (imagecompressor.com)

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//compressjpeg.com/ru/

A similar service. According to my observations, it works a little faster. You can upload dozens of photos at once (multi-upload)

Compression results (compressjpeg.com)

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//www.resizenow.com/ru

A very convenient and simple service for changing the width / height of JPG images / photos. After downloading the file, you just need to select a new size and click "Change".

Next, a link will appear to download the modified files. Fast and easy!

Very convenient image resizing service - resizenow

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//photo-resizer.ru/

Another similar service: after uploading a photo, you can manually specify the size you need in pixels and download the finished image.

The service is very simple and convenient to use even from a smartphone (note: buttons and menus are large).

Change the width of the JPG height (site photo-resizer.ru)

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//tinyjpg.com/

A very popular foreign service for compressing pictures and photos (by the way, it also supports PNG format). You can upload 20 files at once!

After downloading, the service will automatically compress the files and present you with links to download them immediately. Note that this service provides one of the best JPG compression ratios!

TinyJPG - the main page of the service

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//www.jpegmini.com/

(Update 17.10.18: online compression of files was prohibited, offering to use its own special utility)

The JPEGmini service differs primarily in that you can upload even very large pictures here (tens of MB, many other services generally give an error when uploading them).

The compression ratio is high enough (although it loses to the same TinyJPG). By the way, before uploading, you can see a preview of the original / compressed photo to immediately evaluate how much the compression has affected the image quality.

JPEGmini - photo compression results

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Additions on the topic are always welcome ...

Happy work!

👋

First published: 03.10.2018

Correction: 11/01/2020

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