Storage* certainly comes at a premium; and with image sizes increasing with almost every new camera release, it’s time to try and take back some of that space.

I encountered this problem last year when attempting to upload a number of very large photos to a cloud server for a client. With a slow connection and quickly diminishing amount of allocated storage, I began my search for a more efficient process.

Hmmm, what if there was a way to shrink the size of the images but keep all the detail and quality? I’d save space and it certainly wouldn’t take so long to upload the shots.

I found plenty of online options, each promising to reduce the photo without affecting its quality. Sounded perfect. The only issue with that being I’d now have to upload the original to the website and then download the smaller file after – obviously a deal breaker when travelling or caught with a slow connection.

I kept up the search and stumbled across a piece of software that promised to do all of the above, offline.

Enter the lifesaver - JPEGmini from Beamr Imaging LTD.

Here’s what their website has to say:

“JPEGmini is a patented photo recompression technology, which significantly reduces the size of photographs without affecting their perceptual quality. The technology works in the domain of baseline JPEG, resulting in files that are fully compatible with any browser, photo software or device that support the standard JPEG format.” - JPEGmini

In English; it turns big photos (JPEG’s only) into small photos and doesn’t affect the quality.

I use the Sony A7riii* and each file comes in at about 40mb. Once images have been processed in Lightroom/Photoshop and run through JPEGmini’s software, they are well under half the size. The software allows you to specify the dimensions of the images as well; so for web optimisation I usually choose 1350 pixels on the longest side. This always results in images below 500kb and usually even less.

I have carefully studied many of my images after using the software and really can’t see any discernible difference between them.

So, who will benefit the most from this?

While the possibilities are endless, I’d suggest anyone who is working with large numbers of files and regularly passing them to clients will get the most use from it. Imagine you’re wedding photographer and you deliver your photos via using a good old-fashioned USB stick. By using this you could get away with a stick that’s half the size. Perhaps a very small saving to start with but everything always adds up in the end.

Of course, the most important use for this will be saving space but does even more than that. You may already know but search engines prioritise smaller images. So, if you want to rank higher in search results then dropping a fair few megabytes really can make all the difference. Not only that, your website will load considerably faster with the reduction in size.

There’s a free trial to get you started and then there’s the option to update to PRO if it meets your needs. The PRO version rolls in at $59 (about £45) and gives you unlimited use and a few more features. With the Adobe plugins option included it’s $89 (about £68).

Conclusion

With the price in mind, it’s still one of cheapest bits of camera related software you’ll ever buy and, in my opinion, one of the most useful. I literally use it for absolutely everything now. There’s one final deal maker that I’ve barely touched on yet too; time. Your time is arguably more valuable than any of the work you do and you’re just about to save a ton of it with JPEGmini.

Finally, this isn’t sponsored. I used my own money to purchase this software and have no affiliation to the company behind it. I have just genuinely found it to be one of the best photography-related purchases I have made.

* Commission earned through Amazon links.