Optimize Your Images Effortlessly Through Online Editor Smush it - A Review

Stoyan Stefanov and Nicole Sullivan, two Yahoo developers have made image optimization easier than it was ever before. Smush it is their brain child. It is a free online tool for lossless compression of JPG, PNG, GIF files (including animated).

So all you need to do is just go to their site and upload your image file. Then they will smush or optimize the pic for you within seconds and provide you with a download link in zip files and also tell you the exact percentage of optimization.

Let’s take a detailed look at it.

How Does Smush it Works?

According to the makers, Smush it sees and changes the following to optimize a picture.

• Crush PNG
• Convert GIF to PNG
• Convert JPG to progressive JPG
• Remove Metadata
• Compress animated GIF

Smush It removes all extraneous data from image files without reducing image quality. Non-lossy image optimization tools that are image format specific are used to minimize image file size and maximize image quality. It works with JPGs, PNGs, GIFs, and animated GIF files.

Smush it works on two different levels. First, it strips all the metadata out of the file. For small files like logos or buttons, this data can make up a large part of their size and to be very true, few users will ever care what editor you used to create a button. After this, Smush it applies a number of non-lossy, open-source image optimization algorithms to the image.

What We Liked

1. Quick and Easy with Minimum Fuss

What I liked most about Smush it is its quick. The second point is its easy. Anyone who knows nothing about web technology or web operations can use Smush it with ease. You visit the site, upload the pic, they smush it for you and you download. That is it!I uploaded 4 pics to test it and it took me only 10-15 seconds to smush them and get them back. It was pretty impressive.

2. Efficiency

Smushit.com is a service that goes beyond the limitations of Photoshop, Fireworks & Co. It uses image format specific non-lossy image optimization tools to squeeze the last bytes out of your images - without changing their look or visual quality. You’ll get a report of how many bytes you can save by optimizing your images.

I never got a less than 10% optimization to any of my uploaded files. So it was pretty efficient and lemme remind you again, I got no degradation of quaility.

3. No Headache for Bloggers

To be practical, Smush it will never be a preferred choice for Photoshop experts. They will always talk about the featurefulness of an image editor software than encouraging an online initiative. But think about the busy bloggers(may be you). For image optimization you will not have to open an image editing software that looks more like an aeroplane cockpit with all those buttons. It will save time, it will save your grey matters for better cases. That is something Smush it will gain from, always.

4. Firefox and URL Compatibility

Smush it has a plugin for Firefox too. If you are running Firefox, then its simpler for you to just install the plugin and use it from your browser.

Again, if you don’t have the picture in your hard disk but still you wanna optimize it, you can do it from URL tab. It will ask for the specific URL of the picture you wanna optimize and do it from there.

5. Extensions

Smush.it also transforms GIFs into more efficient PNG files when necessary and optimize PNGs and animated GIFs. It works with JPG too. So, most of the well known image file formats are supported.

What We will Like to See

1. More Features

We certainly wanna see more features from Smush it in future. Only optimization and compression will not take it to a high way. I hope the developers will come out with alternate ways to make it more popular. We will surely want Smush it to become an one stop image editing destination.

2. Open Source

Despite a bunch of paid and free image optimizing apps which already exist. Smush It attracts users with hassle free process. The developers promise to release the official API, open source the code and the command-line version soon. For now there’s already workaround to use this image optimization tool without official API.

We will like it be an open source platform as soon as possible.

In Conclusion

Well, the verdict is pretty simple. Smush it impressed me and deserves the attention of others. I hope you are gonna love it.