Providing client images for website

[Stacey Sedgman]

Hi Damien,

 

I have read your article about sizing for web best practices etc but I've had a client request images that are 1500 px on the longest side but no larger than 500kb. What is the best way to ensure this because my 1500 px images are coming out at least 700 kb or does 200kb not really matter?

[Samantha LaRue]

Don't worry about the megabytes or the kilobytes. You shouldn't have issues getting them the right size if you resize to 1500px on the long wide, and save at a quality 10 jpeg. 

Have you resized any files already? Are they too big for your clients request?

[Samantha LaRue]

And I'm also a little confused about your clients request. You said they needed something no larger than 500kb, but later asked for them to be at least 700kb? Not that the kb matter per se, but I just want to make sure we are on the same page.

[Stacey Sedgman]

No i'm saying i resized them to 1500 px and they're 700kb in size but the client had said for her website they need to be 1500 px and 500kb. My  question was does the 200 extra kb in size matter that much when it comes to sizing for websites.

[Christina Keddie]

You'd have to ask your client about that.  There may be some server-side issues why they have a KB limit on their images (though I'd give them a serious side-eye, since most servers should have the bandwidth to handle images that are much larger than 500KB).  But if that's the client's limit, that's the client's limit.

How are you saving these files?  What JPG quality level out of PS?  I'd imagine going down a quality level (assuming you're not already at or below about quality 9) should do it for you.

[Stacey Sedgman]

I'm saving them as jpeg quality 12 so i'll drop down to a 10 and see if that does it. Thanks!

[Christina Keddie]

Even just 11 might do it -- it makes a huge difference in file size in bytes to go down just one level. 

[Damien Symonds]

Yes, 12 is crazy high.  9 is ample for web images.