Reducing Disk Space and Bandwidth — Compressing Images
Images bring your website to life — but if they’re too large, they can quickly eat up disk space and bandwidth. Modern cameras and design tools such as Canva, Photoshop, and smartphones create high-quality files that are perfect for print, but far larger than needed for the web. By resizing and compressing your images before uploading, you can dramatically improve performance without losing visible quality.
Physical Dimensions
Every image is saved with physical dimensions — its width and height in pixels. A typical iPhone photo, for example, might be around 4032 × 3024 pixels (over 12 megapixels!). On a website, however, even a high-quality full-width image usually only needs to be around 1920 × 1080 pixels — and often much smaller for banners, thumbnails, or product images.
By reducing image dimensions before uploading, you help your server work more efficiently. It won’t have to constantly resize large files for different devices, saving both disk space and bandwidth while improving loading times for visitors. Smaller files also make backups faster and reduce data transfer costs.
There are many free tools online to resize images — one example is https://www.reduceimages.com/. Simply upload your photo, choose a new width (e.g., 1920 pixels for banners or 800 pixels for smaller images), and download the resized version ready for your site.
Image Compression
Once your image has been resized, the next step is compression. Compression reduces the file size by removing unnecessary data — without noticeably affecting how the image looks. This process makes your site load faster and saves storage space.
A great free online tool for this is https://tinypng.com/. You can drag and drop your images, and the tool will automatically optimise them for web use. PNG and JPEG formats both benefit significantly from compression, especially for large graphics or photos.
Rule of Thumb
- Don’t upload photos straight from your phone or camera — they’re too large for the web.
- Resize to appropriate pixel dimensions before uploading (usually no more than 1920px wide).
- Compress your images after resizing to reduce file size further.
- Use online tools like Reduce Images and TinyPNG.
- For repeating website elements (like icons or buttons), consider SVGs — they’re lightweight and scale perfectly.
Good image optimisation doesn’t just save space — it makes your website faster, greener, and more enjoyable to browse.
