How can you obtain fast-loading Amazing-looking product photos that look stunning

Apr 22, 2023

The problem is that putting these photos to your store's site could cost you. With every image or media file you upload to the site's product page, it's going to be slower to load. And your shoppers, no matter how interested they may be, aren't willing to be waiting around for long.

One of the most common questions store owners find themselves asking is this: How do I speed up image loading with a beautiful, high-resolution look? It may seem like a daunting task, but there's actually quite a couple of easy ways to make sure that you have a balance between speedy pictures of your products with stunning images.

Let's first gain understanding of why speed on the internet is crucial. In the next section, we'll discuss the ways you can decrease the time it takes to load your photos while maintaining the quality.

There are a variety of reasons for it is important to have images that load quickly for merchandise is as crucial in the same way as having appealing images. One of the reasons that owners of shops think of first is search engines.

There is no doubt that faster websites are more effective when it comes to search results, with everything else being equal. The higher your position in rankings, the greater organic traffic that you can get to your site. The speed isn't the sole reason speed is crucial. Google only made speed an important ranking factor in the beginning in order to prioritize User Experience (UX) on the web.

What it boils at: shoppers don't want to be waiting around. They don't like waiting around for delivery and aren't interested in waiting on answers or replies or answers. They certainly don't wish to sit around waiting for your site to be loaded. Therefore, if you provide your customers with an ineffective, slow website is that a negative impression regarding their experience with you?

man sitting with arms crossed

Also, while big image files could slow loading times on pages and negatively impact SEO, slow pages may also irritate your clients. importantly -- irritate your shoppers. That's why it's crucial to strike that balance between speed and beauty.

So, with that thought to keep in mind, let's explore ways to make your image files smaller but still retain their high quality.

Be sure to save your images to WebP or JPEG format, unless you require transparency.

It is generally accepted that WebP should be the first choice, with JPEG as a second option in the event that you require transparent in any way. If transparency is required, choose a transparent PNG.

Some formats are bigger than others, or they're not suitable to be used for web compression. If you're considering using the funny animated GIF on the website of your product, you should think twice about it. This is a compromise to speed down loading times. This isn't worth the moment of laughter your shoppers might have.

We'll take a closer glance at the sizes of files on this picture of a teacup placed against an uncolored background. It was saved with one of the most popular image formats. The image was not compressed on this file. The size is only the dimension of the file when saving the image at 1280x853 pixels. This is the highest resolution.

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

You can see that the file format with the lowest size is WebP file with JPEG at a close third. The largest file size is the TIF file format. The GIF file is nearly twice the size of WebP files. WebP file. If it were a form of animated GIF then it'd be more massive.

Images are not only saved in various sizes and at their best quality, they are also able to compress and compression abilities. After running image file optimization for these file types in Photoshop using the adjustment of settings so that they produce pictures of the same image quality, here are the outcomes:

image sizes after compression

The WebP image has been saved once more at the size of its smallest file which was at a large distance. The JPEG reduced the size of its files significantly. Its PNG did not have any savings in files' size, and the reduction in the dimensions of GIF was minimal. Making use of LZW compression for the TIFF image, it has saved substantial amounts of file dimensions, but the final image remains greater than 2.5x larger than the original non-compressed WebP image.

If you have a lot of files on your site it's possible to observe the benefits that compressing WebP and JPEG images can save tons of space, while also keeping the loading times of your images relatively fast.

NOTE: AVIF is another image format believed to be more compressible than WebP. Although it does have wide support but it's not as popularly supported as WebP. If you're using Adobe Photoshop to edit images, you'll need install an add-on to open AVIF images and save them to 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 a zoom function enabled on your website, that's). The latter is easily achieved thanks to the help of the application for compressing images.

Many of these applications have such a high efficiency that even the untrained eye can't help but be amazed by the distinction between images that are compressed as opposed to those that are not.

photographer taking a picture with a camera

Before compressing your photos, you'll want to determine the max size is that your pictures will be shown. Mobile devices typically have larger resolution screens with higher resolution as compared to desktop computer. But, high-definition screens are becoming more common on desktop.

It's possible that a 500px wide image that is displayed on a 500px wide screen isn't very appealing, and images with 1000px or 800px widths appears better when it is limited to 500px on an iPhone or a retina-based display on a desktop.
    Explore your images sizes to find out what you'll find to be the best balance for your items. Also, if you're providing the option of zooming your pictures of the products you'll need to make use of more larger images than with thumbnails.

When you've established what the ideal size of your pixel should be, you can move on to converting your images with high resolution into optimized, web-ready images.

Here's a brief overview of the software that could be used to produce fast-loading product photos on your website.

Adobe Photoshop

If you're using the most current version of Adobe Photoshop, there are many options to save images to a an optimized format for you. There is a way to utilize this feature. save as feature. Be sure to change the file's name before saving your file using the same format as was used to create the originally saved file uses. It is also possible to take advantage of Export to or the previous Save option for Weboption (until the feature no longer works).

Photoshop compression settings

Each one of these options will have steps during the process of saving that will let you adjust the compression settings of the images. But, they all offer different features and options.

  • Saving As can be the only option. Save as will allow users to save a WebP document.
  • The two choices, Export to and Save for Web permit you to alter the size of your photo in the process of saving. If you're selecting Save as then you'll have modify your image's size to the size you'd like to have in Photoshop before saving it.
  • The legacy Save For Web option is the only one that will show you an estimated loading time as well as the final file size prior to exporting your image. This feature allows users to change the animation loop's settings in the GIF and give you specific options regarding what information to include in the image file.

All other options of these methods are the same -- select whether to retain or remove metadata, include the desired color profile, as well as adjust the quality of your image (lossy as well as lossless).

Are you missing Photoshop? Solution: Use one of these web-based tools

It's not a lot of people that are able to access Photoshop However, it shouldn't be an excuse to put you off. There's a plethora of free web-based applications that can reduce the size of your images.

The two top ones are Kraken Image Optimizer as well as ShortPixel. The two tools reduce your photos to astonishingly small sizes yet maintain quality.

compression tool in action

Once the program has finished uploading your pictures, you'll have the option to save the files to your PC and then upload the images to your store online.

Both of the free versions contain some limitations concerning the quantity of files and/or maximum file size that they can upload. This means that it will be somewhat more time-consuming and time-consuming in comparison to Photoshop or the paid plan. However, it is cost-free and if you don't have a large catalogue of a few hundred items, then this might work for your needs.

Have you got a WordPress account ? Change the WordPress settings or use a plugin

There is a chance that you may not be aware that compression for images is built right into WordPress. The compression reduces the size of your JPEGs down to around 82 percent of their original size however, this may not be enough for sites which require huge, detailed photos or large galleries.

One option you have to restrict this compression feature is to edit WordPress's functions.php file. This will allow you to increase -- or decrease depending on your preference for the amount of compression that is automatic that takes place prior to your pictures being uploaded to your Media Library.

Want an easier method? Consider an app. ShortPixel has its own version which can work with nearly every type of file that supports Apple's HEIC format, so you are able to add images directly from your iPhone. When you register for a free account you will receive 100 credits each month.

Enable a content delivery network for your store

While the latest Internet connections and improved hosting features have speeded up the amount of time it takes for a shopper to load your site, there may still be issues with connectivity. This can affect the speed of your site's loading time, particularly when your customer is located within a distance of where your server is.

Luckily, there's a way to speed things up for speedier processing (and it's not just for larger files, like photos of products, either). A content delivery network (CDN) display the stored information on servers physically close to visitors instead of streaming content the same spot. This speeds up the user experience all users.

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 information directly through the CDN server near their. Both of these things speed the download process dramatically, especially for large photos as well as media files.

Along with the compression feature, using a CDN can be a great way to serve images of your products quickly particularly when you aren't updating your shop on a regular basis. However, if require updating your store in a hurry then you'll need to turn off your CDN off.

There are other methods you can use to achieve balance that is super fast and easy

The suggestions above are among the essential things you can achieve to create a balance among images of items that appear great and load quickly. But here are a few more tips to keep in mind:

  • Choose white backgrounds. In general, the fewer shades an image's palette contains more, the less the file size it will be. Also, it is applicable when compression comes into play and the palette is further decreased.
  • Eliminate unnecessary product shots. Do you have photos of your footwear that are being sold from a variety of angles? Then you can reduce the number to five, and decrease the loading time to a half.
  • load first thumbnails, then only display the entire size once the user clicks. This means that customers do not have to wait for bigger pictures.
  • Image that loads slowly. Lazy loading images speeds up page loading by loading images over the fold, and also loading more images when the user scrolls where they're in the web page. The Jetpack plugin does not just provide CDN functions, but also slow loading images. Jetpack additionally offers various WordPress optimization tools which, although not directly linked to images, could increase speed and improve the user experience.
  • Remove irrelevant metadata. Depending on the purpose of your image file, it could have a large amount of metadata, including keywords for copyright tags, geo-data, such as descriptions of images, and so on. Sometimes it is feasible to save the metadata but you can also free the space in the files by not saving the metadata when compressing your images.

Amazing product images should not be the reason for slowing your site (or the customers you serve)

It might seem like the most effective way to create beautiful images of your merchandise is to go with a slow-loading store or that the only method to speed up loading pages is to go with tiny pictures that are extremely compressed. We disagree.

With just a few improvements to the photos you sell and you'll find an ideal blend of speedy loading and breathtaking. Your site - -- nor your shoppers should be slowed down.

This post was posted on here