We have previously covered tools like RIOT and Image Resizer Power Toy that can reduce the size of your photos while retaining the original quality but there may be scenarios, take college cybercafé for example, where bandwidth is not an issue but being logged in as a Guest or Limited user you cannot install any of these tools, and thus you require an online tool that can do the task. JPEGmini is one such online photo optimization tool that claims to reduce the size of JPEG photos (only JPEG format) by 5x without any loss in the quality or resolution of the photos. You can visit JPEGmini and start using the tool right away, but it’s advisable to create an account first. You can also connect using your Facebook or Google accounts where JPEGmini will ask your email address in the permission window. Once you are in, click on the big blue button that says Upload Your Photos to start uploading. The tool will ask you to select and upload all the photos you would like to compress and create a new album for them. Each album that you upload can contain up to 1000 photos, and can be up to 200 MB in size. You may upload as many albums as you want. Once all the photos are uploaded they will be processed by JPEGmini. The processing may take some time depending upon the size of your album but once the processing is complete you will be informed by an email. The page will show you the original size of the album along with the compressed size. There’s no way you can download the individual photos from the album, and you will have to download the full compressed album in the zip format. There’s an option to upload the album to Picasa and Flickr directly as well. Note: The album once created will be available for seven days and thereafter it will be deleted automatically.
My Verdict
As you can see in the above screenshot, I tried the tool on one of my photos, and it was reduced to .99 MB from about 3. 2 MB. When I previewed the compressed image and compared it to the original image I was surprised. I mean, if I ask any random person if he can make out the difference in two photos, I am sure he will not be able to tell which one is original and which one was processed. The only thing that will restrain me from using the service is that it’s an online tool. If they come out with a desktop tool for the same, I am sure it will be a huge hit. What do you think? The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.
