Easy way to reduce multiple image file size
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Every post of mine has lots of photographs, and I am finding it a PITA to go reduce them before uploading them to my media library in wordpress.com. Why can’t I just drag them all into an image optimization folder in wordpress that goes straight to my media library? Or does anyone have any advice on what you currently do? Many thanks, all replies appreciated.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Howdy,
Although optimizing images already uploaded in the media player is not really possible, there are some easy options available to size and compress a batch of photos very quickly. It is something you can do in Photoshop for sure, but there are some free options as well. Please visit our support page regarding image optimization:
Let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks!
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Thank you Darnel for your quick response!
I must have explained myself badly: I don’t particularly need to optimize images *already* in the media library, since I have individually resized them in preview before uploading them.
What I want is a way to automatically optimise their size (who needs a 5MB single image when it’s on a screen?) *as* I drag them over to upload them. A bit like how when I send an image by email I get the automatic question asking me whether I want to image to be large/medium/ or small file.
I just don’t see why I have to go to a different software (Preview, in my case) to carry out a sequence of commands before uploading to WordPress. Surely this must be in your interest too? The smaller the image size on your hosting site the better for everyone. And almost everyone posts photos on their blogs – so they must either also be going through this tedious process or not bothering and clogging up their blogs with oversized images.
I would welcome your thoughts. thanks,
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WordPress.com provides free blogs and hosts them free of charge. There are no bandwidth charges. All WordPress.com blogs come with 3000 megabytes (~3 GBs) of space for storing uploaded files and images. Free features are listed here https://en.wordpress.com/features/
If you do not optimize and size every image to fit exactly where you intend to embed it you will soon find your free media space limit is exhausted and be faced with purchasing an upgrade https://en.support.wordpress.com/space-upgrade/
Also know that using the cropper on any image reduces the image quality.
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Thanks timethief! I appreciate what you say – and have found your views echoed in articles such as https://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/image-optimization-guide/
I am a gardener, and only middling competent with IT, and I find I resent the amount of time spent fiddling around on technical stuff rather than on the writing and taking photographs. I read about plugins available to wordpress.org (wp-smush, for example), and want them – their reviewers say it’s super intuitive and very efficient.
I would be happy to pay to upgrade to premium to get this, but I don’t think wordpress.com premium offers it – I would have to go over to wordpress.org in order to load the photo optimisation plugin. It is so confusing – God knows it’s hard enough just to blog!
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You don’t need to reduce them first because images at WordPress.com are optimized automatically based on your theme’s content width combined with what size you picked when you inserted the image. The only reason I can think of to optimize images before uploading is if you are extremely particular about image display and want to try to get as much tight control as possible over how optimized images look.
Let’s take a look at https://andthegarden.wordpress.com/ to find an example. I right-clicked the first image while viewing the site on my laptop and copied the image URL and this is the URL: https://andthegarden.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/rootballed-limes-in-situ.jpg?w=611&h=458
See how it ends with ?w=611&h=458 — that means the image has been optimized to a width of 611px.
If I download the 611px version, it’s 29KB. If I download the one with out ?w=611&h=458 at the end, it’s 542KB.
Does this explanation cover the problem you were trying to solve?
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Designsimply, thank you so much for your time and thought.
I think I follow what you say. I am in no way particular about display, I’m just looking for the smallest file size without compromising quality (and I often get that wrong), but if I don’t reduce their size, regardless of how they display, they sit in my media library taking up 5MG of of my 3000 MG as opposed to 1MG.
Do you know, having typed that I’ve just realised that I have space for 600 photos. Stuff it, when I get near that limit hopefully know enough about how to fix it (or upgrade!).
Thanks again :)
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Oh, I see, you want to reduce the file size before uploading to save space in your media library in the first place. I didn’t understand that before. Sorry about that!
You’re exactly right about the space :) and if you did want to worry about saving space, then reducing the size before uploading would be the only way to go. Some photo apps have an option to export files at optimized sizes for the web, in bulk. So if you ever decide to come back around to this, maybe look for a way to do that with a local app on your computer (i.e. I use Lightroom and it can export at whatever size I tell it to). I think you’re better off just uploading the files you’ve got and not worrying about it like you said. :)
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Yes, the way you said it was a lot more clear! I think I got myself tied up in knots.
Thank you so much for your reassurance – and the tip about Lightroom. I will file that away for the future.
Right. Now back to editing my blog post, without the excuse that the technology is so haaaaaaard.
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