There are many factors that can affect the load time of your web site's pages such as HTTP requests, scripts and the very server your site resides on among other things. One of the most overlooked aspects of page load time is image optimization. This is especially true if your page contains many images or even a few large ones. While there are various desktop image editors that can help with image optimization not everyone can afford them. This is where PunyPNG comes in.
PunyPNG is an online service that allows you to upload your image where it is optimized and can then be downloaded with no loss of quality. How does it work?
Depending on the file, punypng will automatically convert your GIF into a PNG format and then further compress that. For JPEGs, sometimes it's better to make it a PNG, and other times it's better to keep it as JPEG and use jpeg-tran to optimize it. punypng makes all those decisions for you and ensures the best possible results.
In order to use the service you must have Flash installed. You can upload multiple images one at a time. After each is optimized, which takes mere seconds, it is offered as a download. A rather neat feature is the ability to download multiple optimized images packaged together in a ZIP file rather than individually.
So, how well does it work? I tested the service by uploading seven images. As you can see in the screen shot below the savings are quite substantial. (click image to enlarge)
If you have images in need of optimization give PunyPNG a whirl. You may be amazed at the results.
About Len Kutchma
