Blog
Guides and tips on image formats, compression, and optimizing images for the web.
July 29, 2026 · 10 min read
Compressing Images from Your AI Coding Assistant with MCP
How to wire up mcp-compressfile so Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible agent can compress, convert, resize, and audit images on your local disk — with sixteen tools and no uploads.
July 27, 2026 · 12 min read
Image SEO in 2026: File Size, Format, Alt Text, and Lazy Loading
Images account for 40-60% of a typical page's weight — and are the easiest performance win nobody has taken. The four levers that actually move rankings in 2026, in one guide.
July 20, 2026 · 11 min read
Why Your PNG Screenshots Are 4MB (And How to Get Them Under 200KB)
PNG is doing exactly what it was designed to do, on content it was never designed for. The four reasons screenshots balloon, and the fifteen-second fix that gets them under 200 KB.
July 13, 2026 · 10 min read
JPEG Quality Settings Explained: Why 80 Is Almost Always Enough
The quality slider isn't a percentage of anything and isn't standardized across software. Here's what it actually controls, why 80 is the sweet spot, and when to deviate from it.
July 6, 2026 · 11 min read
AVIF vs WebP vs JPEG: Which Format Should You Actually Ship in 2026?
AVIF compresses best, WebP is the safest default, and JPEG is still the universal fallback. A practical decision guide for which to ship, and how to serve all three correctly.
June 29, 2026 · 9 min read
WordPress Image Optimization Without a Plugin (And Why That's Faster)
WordPress core already handles srcset, dimensions, lazy loading, WebP, and AVIF. The one real gap is source compression — here's how to close it before the file ever reaches your site.
June 22, 2026 · 10 min read
How to Compress Images for Shopify Without Losing Product Detail
Shopify's CDN resizes and converts formats automatically, but it never compresses your source file. Here's how to get product images under 200 KB without losing the detail that sells.
June 15, 2026 · 9 min read
PageSpeed Insights Says "Efficiently Encode Images" — What to Actually Do
What triggers Lighthouse's most common image audit, exactly how Google calculates the savings number, and the step-by-step fix that clears it for good.
June 8, 2026 · 9 min read
How Long Should Image Compression Take? Benchmarking 8 Popular Tools
Compression speed claims are measured the wrong way almost everywhere. Here's where the seconds actually go, and a reproducible method to benchmark any tool yourself in 15 minutes.
June 1, 2026 · 11 min read
Client-Side vs Server-Side Image Compression: Speed, Privacy, and Quality Compared
A straight comparison of browser-based and upload-based image compression across speed, privacy, and output quality — plus a 60-second test to check which one any tool actually uses.