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Jpeg Imager
In order to have fast-loading web pages, it's imperative to use lean images that
load quickly in the browser, yet looks great on the screen. This goal is best
accomplished by optimizing your images for the web, and while there are numerous
image editing programs on the market that offer the capability of compressing
your Jpeg's, virtually all of them have a serious downside: artifacts and
overall poor image quality in the compressed image.
Jpeg Imager from V-Methods Software
claims to have one of the very best image compression algorithms on the market.
It works by analyzing the image, then performing the heaviest compression on the
areas where the loss of pixel data will have the least affect on image quality.
I decided to put Jpeg Imager to the test, and what I found was nothing short of
amazing.
I took several images with a file size of approximately 500 kilobits and
compressed them with Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0 until the resulting images
were
around 150k. At that compression level the resulting images were noticeably less
sharp and speckled here and there with Jpeg artifacts.
I then took the same 500 kilobit images and compressed them down to 150k with
Jpeg Imager, and as promised there was very little loss of image quality, and
when the desired file size was raised to 200k there was no noticeable
degradation of the images whatsoever! I repeated the tests by compressing
several other images from 1 megabits down to 350k, and the results were equally
impressive. Jpeg Imager beat Photoshop
Elements every single time.
But Jpeg Imager does much more than just compress your photos. The intuitive and
easy to use user interface includes all of these common editing functions and
more:
- Real-Time Preview during the editing process
- Cropping and Resizing
- Image Rotation and "Flipping"
- Brightness, Contrast and Gamma Correction
- Levels Adjustment
- Color Balance and Tones Adjustment
- Negative and "Convert to Grayscale"
- Sharpen and Blur Filters
- Noise Reduction
- A handy and easy to use Batch Processor
- A Thumbnail Generator
- A plethora of compression and image quality controls
Conclusion: In my tests, Jpeg Imager lived up to its promises, and a whole lot
more. I was simply stunned at the level of compression I could apply to my
photos with very little or no noticeable loss in image quality.
In a nutshell, if you need to compress your Jpegs as much as possible without sacrificing image quality
- or even if you just need a top-quality image editing program
that won't break your piggy bank - you really owe it to yourself to give Jpeg
Imager a try. At $29.95, it's truly a bargain. Better yet, you can download a
free, fully-functional 30 day evaluation copy at
www.v-methods.com.
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