Two ways to make a photo lighter
Dimensions: a 4000 × 3000 photo has 12 million pixels. Most screens show far fewer, so reducing it to 1920 pixels on the longest side keeps it sharp on a monitor or phone while removing about three quarters of the pixels.
Quality: JPG and WebP compression discards fine detail that the eye barely notices. A quality between 70 and 85 usually cuts the size by more than half with no visible difference.
Recommended settings
- Email and messaging: 1600–1920 px, quality 70–80.
- Websites and blogs: 1200–2000 px depending on the layout, quality 70–80 (WebP if possible).
- Archiving while keeping full resolution: leave “Max width / height” empty and use quality 85.
A bonus for your privacy
Photos taken with phones contain hidden metadata, including the exact GPS location where they were taken. Compressed images created here do not include that metadata, so they are safer to share.