How do you get fast-loading, stunning-looking product photos

Apr 22, 2023

But, adding these images to your online store could also come at a price. Each large picture or media file that you upload to the page's loading time is increased. Customers, regardless of the level of engagement they may have, aren't willing to be seated for very long.

The question store owners are faced with is: What can I do to increase speed of loading images while maintaining a beautiful look? This might seem like something to tackle, but there's actually quite number of methods that are able to get fast product pictures and amazing image quality.

Let's review of why speed on the internet is crucial. Then, we'll go over how you can cut down on the load time of your photos and still preserve their high-quality.

The speed of your website's speed is crucial (hint that it's not only about SEO)

There are many motives for getting images that load quickly for merchandise is as crucial in the same way as having beautiful images. One of the reasons that store owners are most likely to think of is search engines.

It is a fact that speedy websites have a greater impact on search engine results while everything else is equally effective. Also, the higher up your rank in the searches you rank higher, the greater organic traffic you could drive to your site. This isn't the only reason why speed is crucial. Google only made speed a ranking element at the beginning in order to give priority to the User Experience (UX) on the web.

Let's look at what is that it all boils down to: customers don't like to be waiting around. They don't want to be waiting for shipping times, and they aren't willing to wait for answers or responses, and definitely aren't content sitting around waiting for your store to open. If you give prospective customers with a slow, sluggish site, what does that say about the overall experience they have with your company?

man sitting with arms crossed

Although large files delay loading times, which can hurt SEO, these slow pages are also, most importantly, they could annoy your shoppers. That's why it's important to strike that equilibrium between beautiful and fast.

With that in mind we can now look at how you can utilize these ways to reduce your photo files smaller while preserving the quality of your photos.

Keep images to use later to use later in WebP or JPEG format unless you need the transparency

Generally speaking, WebP is the preferred option, with JPEG as a second option in case you require transparency for a particular reason. When transparency is required it is advised to use transparent PNG.

Certain formats are larger than others, or they're not suitable for web compression. If you're planning to use an humorous animated GIF to your website's product page it's best to reconsider. It's an option in order to speed up loading speeds. isn't worth the quick smile your clients might receive.

The following article will examine the size of this picture of the cup of tea, set against white backgrounds, when it is stored using the most popular formats for images. There was no compression of the image in the file. The dimensions of the file when saving this image in resolutions that is 1280x853 pixels. resolution.

white cup of tea on a platter
image sizes listed for GIF, JPG, PNG, TIF, and WEBP

You can see that the file with the lowest size is a WebP file, with JPEG as a close second. The most large size file format is TIF which is the most popular file format. It is estimated that the GIF file size is more than twice the size of the WebP file. If it was a form or animation GIF file, it is more than double the size.

Not only do images save in various sizes and formats in the best quality, but they have distinctive compression capabilities too. After performing optimization of image files on each of the above images using Photoshop with settings that led to images with the same visual quality These were the outcomes:

image sizes after compression

The WebP image is saved once more at the size of its smallest file -- and by an extremely large distance. The JPEG was also able to reduce its file size considerably. In contrast, the PNG didn't have any savings in file size and the shrinkage in size of GIF was not significant. The use of LZW compression for the TIFF image has saved a huge quantity of file size, but the size of the final file is more than 2.5x greater than that of the non-compressed WebP image.

If you have many thousands of files stored on your website and you are able to see benefits from compressing WebP or JPEG images. These can free up a lot of space, while also keeping the loading time for images fairly rapid.

Notification: AVIF is another image format that tends to offer better compression as WebP does. While it is supported by a wide range of people, but it's still not as popularly supported as WebP. If you're employing Adobe Photoshop to edit images it is necessary to install a plugin to allow opening AVIF documents and then save them in AVIF format.

Utilize compressing images for web-friendly images.

The customers want photos of products that are large high-quality, precise and are able to be zoomed (if you have the zoom feature enabled in your site, that's). This is possible employing software to aid in image compression.

A lot of these programs have become so efficient that a person with no training in eye sight is in a position to miss the distinction between images that are compressed or uncompressed.

photographer taking a picture with a camera

Prior to compressing your photos prior to compressing them, it is essential to understand the largest file size is that your pictures will be displayed. Mobile devices tend to use display resolutions that are higher resolution when compared with desktop computers. However, higher-resolution displays are becoming frequent for desktop computer.

There is a chance that a wide 500px image that is displayed 500 pixels isn't attractive, while images that are the width of 1000px or even 800px are more appealing when they are limited to 500px for the retina display on a smartphone or desktop display.
    Explore your images sizes to find out what is the ideal balance for your product. In addition, if providing a zoom option to your products' images It is necessary to choose larger images than if you were using only thumbnails.

If you've decided what the max size of your pixel will be, you're now in a position to start transforming photos of your product's original image in high resolution into optimized web-ready photos.

Let's take a look at some of the applications are available to create images that load quickly on your website.

Adobe Photoshop

If you're running every version of Adobe Photoshop, there are many options to save your images in optimized formats. You can use the Save As option. Make sure to alter the file's name, after saving it using the same size as the file originally. Also, it is possible to take advantage of Export to as Save function for Weboption (until the feature is removed from support).

Photoshop compression settings

Each option will have steps during the saving process that allow you to alter the settings to optimize the compression of your photos. Each choice will have distinct features and choices.

  • Save as only Saving as allows users to save the WebP document.
  • The only options are Export to along with Save for Web let you modify the size of pixel pixels in your photos during the process of saving. If you're saving using Save as the option, you'll need to adjust your image's dimensions to the size you'd like it to be in Photoshop prior to saving it.
  • The old Save for Web option is the only option which can display an estimate of duration of loading and final file size prior to exporting your images. The feature lets users modify the Animation Loop's settings when it comes to a GIF in addition to providing specific options for what information to add or exclude from the file.

All other options of these methods are the same. Choose which option you prefer to eliminate any metadata or colour profile, and also adjust the quality of your image (lossy as well as lossless).

Are you not using Photoshop? Do not worry, you can test one of these online software tools

There are many who don't have access to Photoshop This should not be enough to keep you from using it. There are many online tools which are specifically designed to decrease the size of your pictures.

Two of the top most effective are Kraken Image Optimizer as well as ShortPixel. These programs can reduce images down to a remarkably small size while still preserving high-quality images.

compression tool in action

Once the tools are finished uploading your images you'll have the option to save them, then upload images to your store online.

The versions that are free have some restrictions with regard to the amount of files that can be uploaded, or the maximum size that they can be uploaded and this makes it more laborious and time-consuming as Photoshop or their paid plans. The application is cost-free and if you don't have a massive online store that has hundreds of items and products, this could work for you.

Are you using a plug-in ? Modify the WordPress settings, or try the plugin

You may or may not realize that compression of images is built right into WordPress. It can compress JPEG images to 82% of their initial size, however it may not be sufficient for sites that prefer huge, highly-detailed photos or galleries that are large.

Another method to handle the compression feature included in WordPress could be to edit the WordPress functions.php file. It allows you to increase and even reduce the quantity of automated compression depending on the way you want to do with the quantity of compression, which happens before your photos are uploaded to your Media Library.

Want an easier method? It is always a good option to test a plugin. ShortPixel comes with its own plugin that can work with virtually every type of file including Apple's HEIC format so you can upload images straight via your iPhone. When you sign-up for a free account, you get 100 credits per month.

Enable a content delivery network for your store

Although the most recent Internet connectivity as well as the increased capacity of hosting have speeded up the amount of time for customers to visit your website, problems with connectivity. It can impact the time it takes for your site to load, especially when your customer is located around the world from the server where the server is.

It's possible for you to speed things up and increase speed (and it's not only for bigger files, such as photos of items too). A Content Delivery Network (CDN) displays the saved information on servers that are close to users instead of streaming content available from a specific location. This enhances the experience for your clients. customers.

With a CDN like Jetpack, cached (that is, not current-to-the-second) copies of your store will be shown to visitors. The visitors also will receive material from the CDN server which is close to the content they have on their. This will speed down load times dramatically, especially for large photos as well as media files.

Along with compression and the compression feature, CDN in conjunction with the compression feature, using a CDN is an excellent option to deliver product images super fast particularly when you don't upgrade your shop regularly. Of course when something needs immediate update, then shut off your CDN off.

You have other options that are able to balance quickly and with great

The suggestions in the above paragraphs are the biggest and most significant ways to create a harmonious equilibrium between pictures of items that appear nice and load swiftly. But here are a few additional tips to bear on your mind:

  • Select background which is white. In general, the less colors an image contains more hues, the smaller it is. This is especially true when compression is involved and the palette is smaller.
  • Eliminate unnecessary photos of your product. Do you have photographs of the footwear you're selling from ten different angles? You should probably reduce the number of images to five and reduce the time to load by half.
  • Start loading thumbnails, then only display full-size images upon clicking. Therefore, customers don't need to have to wait to see larger images.
  • lazy load of pictures. Lazy loading images speeds up page loading by loading images that are above the fold. Also, it loads images once users scroll where they are within the web page. The Jetpack plugin does more than give CDN capabilities. It provides slow loading of images. Jetpack also has additional WordPress optimizing tools which, although not directly connected to images, could improve speed and enhance the user experience.
  • Eliminate any unnecessary data. Depending on the reason for your images, you could be storing lots of metadata such as copyright details, Keywords tags, geographical data images, descriptions of an images, etc. Sometimes you might like to keep this information but you may additionally be able save some file space by omitting this information when compressing your images.

Amazing product images don't have to slow down your site (or the customers who visit it)

The only method to create beautiful images of the products you sell is by choosing slow loading stores, or perhaps the most effective way to ensure that your pages load quickly for your items is to select tiny images that are compressed. However, we disagree.

Make few modifications to your images of merchandise, you'll be able to find the ideal balance between speedy loading and stunning. Furthermore, neither your website -- or the customers you serve require a slowdown.

Article was posted on here