Best Image Formats to maintain website performance

Welcome to IT People Blog. The goal of optimizing website images is to serve them efficiently. Properly optimized web images result in faster page loading.

This makes viewers happy. It also makes search engines happy because priority ranking is given to faster pages.

You can optimize web images in many ways. Some of them require manual configuration others automate the process. This article describes four optimization techniques and offers best practice tips for image media.

For those inexperienced with image compression, our selections are familiar to bitmap images: JPEG (lossy, no alpha), PNG (Alpha capable, optimized by pre-processing with a lossy strategy), BMP, and GIF (LZW and bandwidth wastage).

However, there are other image formats that browsers support:

• JPEG 2000 (Safari 5+)

Supports alpha, RGB/CMYK, 32-bit color space, lossy or lossless. open source format for lossless compression.

It is a highly scalable ISO standard that allows each part of the image to be saved at a different quality. However, this format only works in Safari without a plugin.

• JPEG-XR (IE9-11, Edge)

Supports alpha, RGB/CMYK, n-channel, lossy or lossless, progressive decoding, 32-bit color space. a proprietary format, developed by Microsoft, that works in Internet Explorer and Edge browsers. JPEG-XR extends current lossy compression techniques for JPEGs with support for lossless compression and transparency.

• Webp (Chrome, Opera, Android Browser, Edge 18+, Firefox 65+ )

Supports alpha, lossy, or lossless. an open source format that supports lossy and lossless compression.

Developed by Google, WebP works on Google, Samsung, Opera, and Firefox 65 and higher browsers. WebP files are typically about 25 percent smaller than comparable formats. This format can be an ideal replacement for GIF, JPEG, and PNG.

Adopt Next Generation Image File Format

Next-generation image formats, for example, the four formats described below, provide better compression than older formats, such as JPEG, which further reduces the size of your images without losing quality.

1. WebP

WebP is an image file type created in 2010 and currently being developed by Google. This image format provides lossless and lossy compression of images on the Internet. Several major brands are campaigning for the use of WebP, most notably Google, Facebook, and Ebay.

At Aristotle, we are always experimenting with techniques that improve website performance for our clients, so we run A/B tests to understand the impact of WebP on image quality and how to best implement it in our client projects.

The main reason we considered using WebP was its smaller file size. According to Google:

• WebP lossless image files are 26% smaller than PNG.

• WebP lossy image files are 25-34% smaller than JPEG images at the equivalent SSIM index.

WebP supports lossless transparency (also known as alpha channel) with only 22% more bytes. Aristotle's tests have found the pros and cons of the WebP image format:

Pro:

• Smaller file size

• Different compression algorithm

• Smoother color gradation

• Alpha Channel Masks

Cons:

• Weak browser support

• Artifacts have a plastic appearance

• Poor export interface

Image quality

WebP uses a new compression algorithm, so artifacts (distortions or degradations) look different compared to other file types. WebP does a great job of maintaining sharp edges in photos.

But, it certainly loses detail and texture as you would expect in a lossy file. Where comparable JPEG files exhibit agitated artifacts in dense areas, WebP offers smooth gradations down to the lowest quality settings.

One downside of this is that human faces can look like plastic or posters at lower settings.

2. JPEG XR

In some of them, you can convert multiple images to JXR format at the same time. Some of them are excellent image editors that can be used as JXR converters but with additional plugins.

This software lets you customize output JXR parameters including quality, bit depth, chroma subsampling, etc.

Apart from JXR, you can also convert images to several other formats such as JPG, PNG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, ICO, TGA, and other formats.

You can find many image modification tools in most of these converters. So, you can enhance image before conversion to JXR format with the help of tools like resize, crop, rotate, flip, watermark, set DPI, adjust color level, etc.

Apart from that, you can find some additional features in this software like folder monitoring tool, various effects and filters, drawing tools, etc.

Overall, it is a feature-rich JXR converter software which is also easy to use. You can find all the necessary steps to convert images to JPEG XR format in each software description.

The latest JPEG image format, again created by the JPEG Group, has better compression. It supports lossless compression, alpha channel, and color in 48-bit over the normal jpg format.

Also read: Where to find blog writing ideas

3. JPEG 2000

JPEG2000 was developed from 1997 to 2000 as a replacement for the original JPEG file format. It is not backward compatible. The goal is to produce files that are smaller than possible with the JPEG format. It also uses lossy or lossless compression for digital images.

JPEG2000 is an image decoding standard originally created as an update of the well-known JPEG Format introduced in 2000 by the committee.

It uses a lossy compression image mode based on discrete wavelet transforms. “Joint Photographic Experts Group”.

Their original intention was to replace the original Image Format they created in 1992, but history shows this never happened. It features a new, wavelet-based design method.

It offers several advantages in image fidelity over standard JPEGs. Browser support is limited, with only Safari attempting to allow its use. JPEG2000 compared to JPEG offers:

• Better higher compression performance,

• Results of various resolutions,

• Options for lossless and lossy compression,

• Improved noise resistance,

• Flexibility in file formats,

• Bit depth support,

• advance support for transparency and alpha areas.

4. Progressive JPEG

Progressive JPEGs are images created using a compression algorithm that load the image in successive waves until the entire image is downloaded.

This makes the image appear to load faster, as it loads the entire image in progressive waves. A normal JPEG loads the image from top to bottom line by line.

Progressive JPEGs were very popular in the late 1990s when the internet relied on slow dial-up connections until the GIF format grew in popularity.

As more mobile devices with slower internet connections, or retina devices that require larger images, the time required to load images slows down.

With a traditional baseline, JPEGs leave a large amount of free space on the screen until the image finishes loading. This makes web pages appear to load slowly.

www,helmykediri.com