How to Get Fast-Loading, Gorgeous-Looking Product Images

The addition of these images to your online store could be costly. For every large image or media files you add to a product page loading time is increased. And your shoppers, no matter how interested they are, aren't willing to sit for for long.

Store owners often find themselves asking is this: How do I increase speed of loading images and still maintain a stunning appearance? This may sound like a difficult task, however there's actually quite couple of simple methods to ensure that you balance speedy product images and stunning image quality.

First, let's have some insight into why web speed matters. We'll then go over the ways you can reduce the load duration of your images but still maintain their quality.

How fast your website is important (hint: it's not just about SEO)

There are a few reasons for why loading speedy product photos is just as crucial as having beautiful ones. One of the reasons that stores owners are thinking of first is search engines.

There is no doubt that sites with speed are more effective when it comes to search results, but all other things considered equal. The higher you rank on searches, the more organic traffic from search engines you'll bring towards your website. But SEO 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 User Experience (UX) on the web.

Let's see what it all comes down to: shoppers don't want to wait. They don't want to wait for delivery times and they do not want to sit around waiting for answers or answers, and certainly do not wish to sit around waiting for your site to load. Therefore, if you provide prospective customers an unresponsive, slow site what will that say regarding their interaction with you?

While large files can slow down loading pages which can harm search engine optimization, these slow pages could also -- and more importantly -- irritate your shoppers. That's why it's crucial to find that perfect the right balance between speed and beauty.

So, with that thought in mind, let's move on to the methods you can use to make your image files smaller but still retain their high-quality.

Make sure to save images for later use in WebP or JPEG format unless you need the transparency

Generally speaking, WebP should be your first option, and JPEG being second choice in case you require transparency in some way. In the event that transparent is necessary, you should opt for a transparent PNG.

Some formats are bigger or aren't as suitable for web compression. While you may be tempted to use an humorous animated GIF on your product page but you ought to think twice before doing so. The cost of loading isn't worth the brief chuckle your shoppers might have.

Take a look at the size of the files for this image of a cup of tea on white backgrounds when it was saved using one of the more popular formats for images. There was no compression of the image on this file. These are just the size of the files for saving the image in 1280x853 pixels, at the full resolution.

It is evident that the smallest file is the WebP file with JPEG as a close second. The largest file size is the TIF the file type. The GIF file is almost twice the size of a WebP file. If this was some kind of animated GIF then it'd be more than twice as large.

Not only do images save at different file sizes at their highest quality, they also have different compression abilities and compression capabilities. After performing optimization of image files on each of the above image files using Photoshop with settings that resulted with images that were similar in to their visual quality, the following were the outcomes:

The WebP image is saved at the smallest file size -which was by a vast margin. The JPEG also reduced its file size considerably. The PNG was not able to have any savings in file size and the reduction in file size of the GIF was not significant. The use of LZW compression on the TIFF image has saved a huge quantity of the file's size as also, however the resultant image is over 2.5x bigger than an uncompressed WebP image.

If you've got many thousands of files stored on your site it is possible to see how using compressed WebP or JPEG images can save plenty of space, and make your loading time for images fairly fast.

Notice: AVIF is another image format which is believed to be more compressible than WebP. While it does have wide support, it's still not as popular as WebP. If you're using Adobe Photoshop to process pictures, you'll need install a plugin that can open AVIF files and save them to AVIF format.

Make use of image compression for web-ready images

The customers want photos of products which are big, high detailed, and able to be zoomed-in on (if you have the zoom feature enabled in your store, that is). This is, thankfully, possible with image compression software.

Many of these applications have become so powerful that an untrained eyesight is not able to distinguish between images that are compressed and those not.

Prior to compressing your photos before compressing them, it is important to know the size that is that your pictures will be displayed. Mobile phones typically use higher resolution displays with greater pixels per inch than desktop computers, although HD displays are increasingly popular on desktops.

There is a chance that an image with a width of 500px displaying in a 500px-wide space doesn't look that great and a 800px or 1000px-wide image is better suited to 500px for the retina display of a smartphone or desktop display.

Try experimenting with the image sizes to see where your ideal balance lies for your products. Additionally, if you are using a zoom function on your images for products, you'll want to use bigger images than if you were only using thumbnails.

When you've established what your maximum pixel dimensions will be, then you're able to move on to converting your high-resolution product images to optimized, web-ready images.

Let's take a look at some of the programs that can be used to generate fast-loading product photos for your site.

Adobe Photoshop

If you're using every version Adobe Photoshop, there are several options to save your pictures using optimised formats. You can use the Save As feature. Just make sure to alter the name of your file if you are saving it using the same format that the original file. It is also possible to use Export to or the legacy Save for Weboption (until that feature is removed from support).

Each one of these options includes steps within the saving process which will permit you to alter your settings to compress images. Each option will come with different options and capabilities.

• Only Save as will allow you to save a WebP file.
• The only two options, Export as and Save for Web permit you to modify the pixel size of your images in the process of saving. If you're making use of Save as it is necessary to resize your image to the size you'd like it to be within Photoshop first.
• The older Save For Web option is the only one which will display an estimated loading time as well as the the size of the file after exporting your image, allow you to change the parameters for the animation loop on an GIF and provide you with granular options on what metadata to include or not in the file.

Other alternatives in all of the methods will be the same -- select whether to retain or eliminate metadata, or embed your color profile, and adjust image quality (lossy or lossless).

No Photoshop? No problem: try one of these web-based tools

Not everyone has access to Photoshop However, this shouldn't be a reason to put you off. There are a lot of free online tools designed to compress your photos.

Two of the most effective tools are Kraken Image Optimizer as well as ShortPixel. Both tools shrink your images to an astonishingly small dimensions while still maintaining quality.

After the software is done uploading your images you'll have the option to save them and add them to your store.

These applications' free versions come with some restrictions regarding the number of files and/or maximum file size that they can upload, so it may be somewhat more laborious in comparison to Photoshop or the paid versions. However, it is cost-free and if you don't have an online inventory of goods and/or products, this could be a great fit.

Do you have a WordPress account ? Edit the WordPress settings or test using a plugin

It is possible to not be aware that image compression is included in WordPress. It compresses JPEG files to 82% of their original size however, this may not be enough for stores who prefer huge high-detailed, detailed photos or huge galleries.

The best way to limit this built-in compression is to edit the WordPress functions.php file. This will allow you to increase -- or decrease the amount of automatic compression, depending on what you like the quantity of automatic compression which occurs prior to the images being uploaded into the Media Library.

Want an easier method? You can always try a plugin. ShortPixel is a plugin, which works for almost every file format which includes Apple's HEIC format, so you are able to add images directly using your iPhone. With a free account, you can get 100 credits each month.

Enable a content delivery network for your store

While the latest Internet connectivity and better capacity of hosting have speeded up the amount of time required for customers to visit your site, there could still be connectivity issues. They can cause slow load times, especially if shoppers are located across the world away from where your server is situated.

Fortunately, there's a way to improve speed for these files (and it's not only for bigger files like product photos, either). A Content delivery network (CDN) shows stored content from servers physically close to visitors instead of content on demand from a single location. The result is a faster shopping experience for all your shoppers.

With a CDN like Jetpack, cached (that is, not current-to-the-second) copies of your store will be shown to visitors. The visitors will also be able to access content via the CDN server which is the closest to them. These two things can speed down load times dramatically in particular for big photos and media files.

Together with compression, utilizing CDNs in conjunction with compression CDN is a fantastic way to serve product photos super quickly, especially if you don't update your store on a frequent frequency. Of course, if anything requires an urgent update it is possible to shut off the CDN off.

Other ways that to balance quickly and amazing

The suggestions above are the largest, and most significant things you could accomplish to find a compromise between product photos that look nice and load swiftly. Here are additional tips to bear in the back of your mind:

• Select White backgrounds. The less shades an image has, the smaller the file size will be. This is even more applicable when compression comes into use and the color palette is further reduced.
• Get rid of unnecessary photos of products. Do you have images of your shoes that you're selling from 10 different angles? Then you can reduce the number to five, and cut down the duration of the loading process by half.
• Start loading thumbnails and only bring up the entire size when you click. So, shoppers don't have to be waited for larger images.
• Images that load slowly. Lazy loading images increases page performance by loading images over the fold and loading other images as users scroll to where they are on the page. The Jetpack plugin does not just provide CDN functions, but also lazy loading of images. Jetpack is also a host of other WordPress optimizers which, although not necessarily directly linked to images, can boost efficiency and boost the experience of users.
• Eliminate unnecessary metadata. Depending on the purpose of your image files, you could contain a significant amount of information about metadata such as copyright Keywords tags, geographical data images, descriptions of the image, etc. In certain situations it is possible to keep this information, but you can also save some space by eliminating it when you compress your photos.

Incredible product photos don't need to slow down your site (or your shoppers)

It might seem like the best way to get stunning images of your products is to settle for a sluggish store, or the best way to speed up loading pages is to settle for tiny pictures that are extremely compressed. We disagree.

Just a couple improvements to the photos you sell and you'll find the perfect balance between fast-loading and gorgeous-looking. And neither your site or your customers should slow down.