Since releasing our automatic image optimisation capability in 2019, Peakhour optimises more than 35 million images each month. On average, clients reduce page download time by 35% and image sizes by 91%.
Automatic image optimisation offers a number of benefits over manual optimisation:
- Image formats are dynamically chosen based on the content of the image.
- Files are optimised based on client capabilities.
- Designer time is saved by offloading image optimisation work.
- Page load times can be reduced across an entire website.
What is Image Optimisation?
Image optimisation means delivering high quality images in the right format and resolution for the device viewing them. The aim is to minimise file size without compromising visual quality. Smaller image files generally load faster in a visitor's browser, which can improve website speed, reduce traffic and support higher page visits and conversions.
Why dynamically choose the image format?
Using a one size fits all optimisation process does not account for the different types of images used across a typical website.
Website images can include:
- Photographs, such as product images, demonstration photos and title photos.
- Logos, which are typically text and can include animation.
- Illustrations that incorporate custom graphics to support the quick perception of information.
- 3D graphics from computer renders including buildings, interior and exterior designs and products.
- Combinations of the above!
Any optimisation process needs to account for the end user's device type, supported file formats, resolution and the content of the image. For example, a photograph with text needs different optimisation parameters so the text remains crisp, while images with large areas of colour may need different formats to avoid colours being degraded by lossy compression.
Fine developer control
With the image optimisation API, your developers can enable reactive images by resizing images on the edge. Peakhour serves and caches these optimisations, reducing origin requests and traffic, cutting costs and making image changes faster to ship. You no longer need to wait for a designer to resize, crop or re-orient an image for a page.
How does image optimisation effect web application performance
Large portions of a website are typically built from images. Large images loading over a 4G network in a train can delay image rendering and create a poor user experience. Layout shifts can occur as the browser attempts to render the page, and the user's perceived page load time will be affected.
You can see the benefit of automatic image optimisation with our free tool. It will analyse any website, calculate its optimisation potential and let you download the optimised images.
See how it can help in a real life example below
Benefits of Peakhour Automatic Image Optimisation
Peakhour image optimisation is integrated into your website so you can reduce traffic, speed up page loads and remove manual image preparation from the design workflow.
- Transforming images on the Peakhour edge enables agility and offloads origin work.
- User experience is improved through faster-loading pages, without a separate workflow for image optimisation.
- Take advantage of new image formats, as supported by end users' browsers, to improve the page load experience.
Final Thoughts
Peakhour image optimisation runs on our CDN network. Images are optimised as they pass through the Peakhour network, and optimised versions are cached for reuse. Peakhour image optimisation also works with Origin Shield, with the original and transformed images cached appropriately. This reduces origin hits and bandwidth while speeding up image delivery.
