How to quickly load stunning-looking images of products

Apr 22, 2023

However, adding these photos on your store's website could cost you. Each large image or media files you add to your product's page, loading time is increased. Your customers, regardless of the level of engagement they have, aren't willing to sit around for an extended period of time.

The issue that retailers face is what can I do to speed up loading time while still maintaining an impressive design? It may seem like something to tackle, but there are many ways that can be used to get quick images of products and excellent images.

Let's first review of why speed on your website is important. In the next section, we'll discuss suggestions on how you can increase the speed of loading your images for products but keep their high-quality.

The speed of your shop is important (hint that it's not just about SEO)

There are several reasons that having quick-loading images of products is equally crucial in the same way as beautiful images. One of the main reasons the owners of stores are considering first involves search engines.

It's true that sites that have faster speed will do better with outcomes from searches, however regardless of the other aspects. And the higher up you are in searches in organic searches, the greater traffic will be directed to your website. However, SEO isn't the only reason speed is so important. Google only made speed a ranking element initially in order to prioritize User Experience (UX) on the internet.

What this boils down to is: shoppers don't want to be waiting around for your store. They don't want to be waiting for delivery times and they do not want to be waiting for responses or replies, and they certainly don't want to sit around waiting for your store to be loaded. So if you offer prospective customers the slow and poor-performing website, what does it say about their experience with you?

man sitting with arms crossed

Furthermore, even though huge images can slow loading of pages, which may hurt SEO. However, these slow pages may also, most importantly, they could make customers angry. This is why it's vital to strike the perfect balance between speed and beauty.

That being said, keeping that idea to keep in mind, let's look on to ways to reduce the dimensions of your pictures smaller while preserving their quality.

Make sure to save images to WebP or JPEG size, unless there is a need for transparency.

There is a general consensus it is WebP is the preferred alternative format, and JPEG being second-best, except for the need to make your image transparent due to a reason. If transparency is required, it is best to select the transparent PNG.

Others are more expansive or don't work as well for web compression. Although you might be tempted to use the funny animated GIFs in your product page on your website but you ought to think about changing your mind. This is a compromise to speed speeds of loading. isn't worth the brief chuckle that your customers might feel.

We'll look at the dimensions of the files within this image of a teacup placed against a white background in the event that it was saved using one of the well-known formats used for pictures. No image compression was run on this photo. This is just the size of the file when saving the image at 1280x853 pixels in full resolution.

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

The smallest file is the WebP format. This is closely followed by JPEG which is a close second. The biggest size of file is in the TIF file format. This GIF file is almost twice as large as the WebP file. If it was an animated GIF the file would be larger.

The pictures aren't only stored with various file sizes with the best quality possible, but also with various compression options and compression capability. After optimizing the image files for all the above images in Photoshop through changing the settings to yield images like their quality These were the results:

image sizes after compression

This WebP image was again saved to the smallest file size -- and by a huge margin. The JPEG has also decreased its size dramatically. Its PNG did not have any size reduction as the decrease in size of GIF was extremely small. Utilizing LZW compression for it's TIFF image, it reduced an enormous amount of space however, the final size is over 2.5x larger than a non-compressed WebP document.

If you're a website owner with hundreds of images on your website You can appreciate the benefits of the compression of WebP or JPEG files would save you tons of space, and also make loading time of your images relatively rapid.

Notice: AVIF is another image format, which tends to be more compressible than WebP. Even though it has widespread acceptance but it's not as well-known as WebP. If you use Adobe Photoshop for processing pictures then you'll have to install a plug-in that can open AVIF photos and save them to AVIF format.

Utilize image compression to produce web-ready images

Customers want images of the products they purchase that are huge as well as precise. They also want photos that capable of being zoomed in (if you've enabled the zoom feature activated on your site, it's). This is possible thanks to the application for compressing images.

A few of these apps have such a high effectiveness that an inexperienced eye is unable to discern between uncompressed and compressed images.

photographer taking a picture with a camera

Prior to compressing your photos before compressing them, it is important to know the size of your files that is that your photos will be shown. Mobile phones usually have high-resolution displays that have more pixels per inch than desktops, however HD displays are increasingly used for desktops.

There is a chance that an image with a width of 500px that can be displayed with 500px isn't particularly visually appealing. A 800px or 1000px-wide image is best suited for 500px resolution for an iPhone or a retina-based desktop display.
    Try experimenting with the image dimensions to determine what the most appropriate balance will be for your products. In addition, if offering the option of zooming your product images, it is recommended to choose bigger images than if you had only thumbnails.

After you've determined the maximum size of your pixel will be, then you're able start to convert the images of your product that are high resolution into optimized, ready for web.

Let's take a look at some tools you could use for creating high-speed loading images to your website.

Adobe Photoshop

If you're running the most recent version Adobe Photoshop, there are different ways of saving your photos with optimised formats. You can use the save as option, but be sure to modify the name of the file, after saving it using the same format as is used to create the original image. Additionally, you can make use of Export as or the legacy Save feature for Weboption (until the time it's taken off support).

Photoshop compression settings

Each one of these options will have steps during the saving process which will let you adjust your settings to optimize images. Each choice will have various options and features.

  • Save As Save as lets you save a WebP file.
  • Only Export As as well as Save for Web let you alter the dimensions of your photo in the process of saving. If you're using the feature of Save As then you'll need to resize your image in the size you prefer you want in Photoshop prior to saving it.
  • The old save for Web option is the only choice which can provide you with the estimated loading time and also the size of your file after exporting your image, allow you to change the settings for animation loops on the GIF and give you the option of choosing what metadata to include or not in the file.

Other choices in each method remain the same, namely the option to delete any metadata. You can also include your color profile, and then adjust the image's quality (lossy or lossless).

Do you have no Photoshop? Problem solved: Try one of these web-based tools

There aren't many people who are able to access Photoshop But this should not be enough to keep you from using it. There's a huge selection of tools online that are free and that are designed to minimize images' size. images.

Two of the most effective two tools are Kraken Image Optimizer as well as ShortPixel. They can reduce images to a surprisingly small dimensions yet still maintain quality images.

compression tool in action

After the software is done with your uploaded images, you'll have the option to save them and then add images to your store.

The two programs' free versions come with certain limitations in relation to the number of files or maximum file dimensions that are uploaded and this makes it somewhat more laborious and lengthy in comparison to Photoshop or their paid plans. It is totally free, even if you don't own an online catalog of hundreds of items, this could work for the situation.

Are you using a plugin ? Change the WordPress settings, or check the plugin

There's a good chance you're unaware that compression of images is integrated in WordPress. It decreases the size of the JPEGs you upload to 82% of their original size But that might not suffice for websites that like large images that have big galleries and high resolution.

The best way to limit the built-in compression feature is to edit your WordPress functions.php file. It allows you to boost (or decrease) the quantity of automatic compression, depending on what you like the quantity of compression automatically occurring before your photos are uploaded to the Media Library.

Do you want an easier way to do it? Consider using an app. ShortPixel offers a version that supports nearly every format of file that incorporates Apple's HEIC format. This allows you to add images directly from your iPhone. When you sign-up for a free account you will receive 100 credits every month.

Enable a content delivery network for your store

Although the most recent Internet connections and improved hosting options have increased the time it takes to allow customers access to your website, there may remain connectivity issues. This can affect site loading times, particularly if customers are far away from the location where your server's location is.

But there's a method to make things faster for these files (and it's not only for large files like images of products or product photos and so on). A Content delivery network (CDN) displays files stored by servers which are located near to users, instead of content available in a single location. This speeds up the user's experience when browsing your users. the customers.

With a CDN like Jetpack, cached (that is, not current-to-the-second) copies of your store will be shown to visitors. Visitors will also receive content via the CDN server that's the closest to their location. These two factors increase the speed of loading particularly for larger photos and media documents.

In addition to the compression option, the CDN is a fantastic option to display product images extremely swiftly especially in the event that you do not update your online store regularly. In the event you have to upgrade your shop quickly, you'll have to shut off your CDN off.

Other ways to balance quickly and amazing

These suggestions are the biggest, significant things you can find a great balance between product photos that look good and load speedily. Below are some additional tips to keep on your mind:

  • Select the white background. Generally speaking, the fewer shades an image has in its colors, the less size is. The same is true after compression is in place and the palette gets decreased.
  • Get rid of unnecessary images of your product. Do you have images of your shoes that you're selling in 10 different angles? You can cut the number to five angles and cut your duration of loading by the equivalent of half.
  • load the thumbnails first but only show the full size once the user clicks. Then, customers will be able to hold off until the bigger photos.
  • lazy load of pictures. Lazy loading images speeds up page loading by loading images above the fold. It also loads other images as users scroll they're in the webpage. The Jetpack plugin doesn't only provide CDN capabilities, but also offers the option of lazy loading images. Jetpack is also hosting platform for a range of WordPress optimization tools that, though not always directly connected to images, may improve speed and enhance the user experience.
  • Get rid of any unnecessary metadata. Depending on the nature of the image file, you might have a large amount of metadata, including copyright information Keyword tags geodata like descriptions of images and so on. Sometimes, it's possible to save this information but it is also possible to make it easier to save space on your file by omitting it in the compression process for the images.

Gorgeous product photos should not be the reason for problems for your website (or your customers)

There's a chance that the only method to create stunning photographs of the products you sell is to go for slow loading stores, or that the only option to have fast-loading pages for your items is to choose tiny images that are compressing to an extreme degree. We disagree.

With just a few improvements to the photos you sell You can achieve an ideal balance of speedy loading and fantastic-looking. Also, neither your website nor your clients will speed up.

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