How Do I Reduce The Size Of A Png?

How to Reduce PNG File Size

Updated on Nov 21, 2018

What are PNG files?

PNG files are a high quality alternative to GIF files. While GIF files are able to provide transparency, they're also express to 256 colors. This can dramatically dethrone the quality of the final output image since monitors are able to prove upwards of 16.seven million colors.

With PNG files, you have the ability to take advantage of transparency, you tin breathing them, and you are able to save them without loss of colour or quality. The ability to have reward of transparency and lossless encoding make them a popular choice for spider web designers and spider web developers; they are i of the virtually ordinarily used paradigm file formats on the web along with JPG. If you're unsure what the difference is between PNG and JPG files, consider reading our PNG vs JPG Images mail.

The need to reduce the size of PNG files

There is one major downside to PNG files, and it is that the file size of this type of image can get large quite speedily. In some cases, but adding a few pixels of boosted width to a PNG file can double the file size.

When you're using them on a website or in an app, PNG files that haven't been optimized tin can dramatically increase load times. Some image editors don't automatically reduce PNG file size for you lot, so y'all'll like need to brand use of an optimization tool / service to reduce the epitome file size.

The good news is that there are a variety of methods and tools that tin can reduce the size of PNG files by anywhere from x to 80 percentage depending on the tool and the epitome in question.

Reduce PNG file size by limiting colors

One of the well-nigh basic ways to cut down on a PNG's file size is to limit the number of colors that the epitome has. PNGs tin be saved as Grayscale, Truecolor, Indexed-color, Grayscale with alpha, and Truecolor with alpha. Beingness saved with alpha means that the PNG also has transparency.

A PNG file saved in Truecolor is going to have a larger file size than one that is saved every bit Grayscale or Indexed-color. If an image is in black and white or only has a few colors, such as with a logo, it'southward a good idea to relieve it with the everyman color option. Indexed-color allows you lot to save the image with upwards of 256 colors, and you tin brand this adjustment in most photograph editors.

Tools to reduce PNG file size

The easiest way to reduce PNG file size if you're working with a number of images is to use an online tool, plugin, or script. Optimus offers users 2 ways to reduce PNG file size. If yous're using a WordPress site, yous can install the Optimus plugin to automatically optimize your PNG images as y'all upload them. You also accept the ability to bulk optimize existing images, optimize thumbnails, convert to WebP and more than.

At that place are besides a number of other tools available for compressing and reducing PNG file size. They piece of work in different ways, so you may need to find the i or ones that are right for you.

Pngquant - This open source PNG compressor is bachelor as a command line tool, and so you can compress multiple images at in one case with a single command. You tin besides download a few programs that will allow pngquant to work with a user interface. The tool is able to reduce file sizes by as much as 70 pct while retaining transparency.
PNGGauntlet - PNGGauntlet is another batch conversion tool, but it is available every bit a standard program for your computer. Information technology takes advantage of PNGOUT, OptiPNG, and DeflOpt. The programme shows you the original and final file size as well as the pct information technology was reduced by. The program can also catechumen JPG, GIF, TIFF, and BMP files to PNG.
PngOptimizer - Lastly, this tool is some other PNG optimizer that cleans up any meta-information information and reduces overall PNG file size. If offers a unproblematic user interface and allows y'all to drag and drop files in gild to start the optimization process. It and so displays the file size earlier and subsequently optimization.

As you lot can see, in that location are a variety of tools currently available to users who desire to optimize their PNG images for amend operation. Choosing the tool that works best for you and delivering optimized PNG images is one of the best ways to amend your website's loading speed.