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Modern phone cameras shoot 12–48 megapixel photos that routinely land at 4–12MB each — massive overkill for anything you'll actually do with them online. Whether you're attaching photos to an email, sending them over WhatsApp, or uploading them to a website, compressing first makes everything faster and avoids hitting size limits.
JPG and WebP images use "lossy" compression, which means you can trade off a small, usually invisible amount of image data for a much smaller file. At 70–85% quality, most people can't tell the difference from the original on a phone or laptop screen — but the file can be 60–90% smaller.
| Quality Setting | Typical Result |
|---|---|
| 90–100% | Nearly lossless, minimal size savings |
| 70–85% | Visually identical, 50–80% smaller — the sweet spot |
| Below 50% | Visible blockiness in detailed areas, but very small files |
PNG is a lossless format, so a quality slider doesn't shrink it the way it does JPG. The most effective way to reduce a PNG's size is to limit its pixel dimensions (most PNGs are far larger than needed for web or messaging use), or convert it to JPG or WebP if transparency isn't required.