6 ms·

Dear HN: I wrote a cross-platform GUI image compressor

27 points by kilian 17y ago

kilian 17y ago
I got the idea for this a while ago while writing a comment on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1032135 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1032135 and it's done now :)
elblanco 17y ago
"I wanted an easier way to compress my files that didn’t involve mucking about on the command line or uploading all my images to some server far away via a crappy flash application". And this is why a 100% cloud future is unlikely to actually happen. Local apps not only use local and cheap computing power, but are often easier and more flexible to use.
- sp332 17y ago
  Or you could use a good webapp, maybe something like this HTML5 tech demo from Mozilla: http://demos.hacks.mozilla.org/openweb/imageUploader/ http://demos.hacks.mozilla.org/openweb/imageUploader/ (video if you can't run the demo http://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/02/an-html5-offline-image-editor-and-uploader-application/ http://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/02/an-html5-offline-image-edit... )
jarsj 17y ago
I was under the impression that PNG/Gif/JPEG are already in compressed form. Your examples also do not show achieving any significant reduction in image size.
- kilian 17y ago
  It depends on the file. Larger png files can easily get a 20% decrease. PNG and JPEG already compress the image, but the file format can be compressed still by removing extra data added by for example Photoshop.
- ZeroGravitas 17y ago
  Yes they are but they can all be further losslessly compressed (even JPEG) than the output you'd traditionally get from an image editor. This has become more well-known than it has in the past, so perhaps there is less low-hanging fruit, but it's still a worthy part of your optimisation routine.
nkm 17y ago
Neat. I've read that it's inspired in ImageOptim (OS X) and I love this app. It can strip up to 10% of the size of a 180k JPG photo and 60% of a tiny PNG. Will try. There is one feature that I miss though, and it's some results about the compresion. Like "You saved 120KB (12%) of a total of 20 files (1024KB)".
shin_lao 17y ago
I'm not sure I understand the point of saving few kilobytes in an application's images. Does it change anything for the user?
- nixy 17y ago
  Faster loading times, especially noticeable on mobile and other slow devices in image-heavy apps.
- jonknee 17y ago
  I think you misunderstood, it's not designed to shrink images that are used in a GUI. It's a GUI based application designed to shrink images (most likely for web sites).
JereCoh 17y ago
ptipng and advpng are great, but pngout still produces smaller files. Without it, I'll be sticking with imageoptim. I would love for someone to figure out what pngout does and start an open source implementation.
bhseo 17y ago
It would be great if you added an option to strip EXIF data from JPEGs. Or does it do that already?

27 points by kilian 17y ago

I got the idea for this a while ago while writing a comment on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1032135 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1032135 and it's done now :)

elblanco 17y ago

"I wanted an easier way to compress my files that didn’t involve mucking about on the command line or uploading all my images to some server far away via a crappy flash application". And this is why a 100% cloud future is unlikely to actually happen. Local apps not only use local and cheap computing power, but are often easier and more flexible to use.

sp332 17y ago
Or you could use a good webapp, maybe something like this HTML5 tech demo from Mozilla: http://demos.hacks.mozilla.org/openweb/imageUploader/ http://demos.hacks.mozilla.org/openweb/imageUploader/ (video if you can't run the demo http://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/02/an-html5-offline-image-editor-and-uploader-application/ http://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/02/an-html5-offline-image-edit... )

jarsj 17y ago

I was under the impression that PNG/Gif/JPEG are already in compressed form. Your examples also do not show achieving any significant reduction in image size.

kilian 17y ago
It depends on the file. Larger png files can easily get a 20% decrease. PNG and JPEG already compress the image, but the file format can be compressed still by removing extra data added by for example Photoshop.
ZeroGravitas 17y ago
Yes they are but they can all be further losslessly compressed (even JPEG) than the output you'd traditionally get from an image editor. This has become more well-known than it has in the past, so perhaps there is less low-hanging fruit, but it's still a worthy part of your optimisation routine.

nkm 17y ago

Neat. I've read that it's inspired in ImageOptim (OS X) and I love this app. It can strip up to 10% of the size of a 180k JPG photo and 60% of a tiny PNG. Will try. There is one feature that I miss though, and it's some results about the compresion. Like "You saved 120KB (12%) of a total of 20 files (1024KB)".

shin_lao 17y ago

I'm not sure I understand the point of saving few kilobytes in an application's images. Does it change anything for the user?

nixy 17y ago
Faster loading times, especially noticeable on mobile and other slow devices in image-heavy apps.
jonknee 17y ago
I think you misunderstood, it's not designed to shrink images that are used in a GUI. It's a GUI based application designed to shrink images (most likely for web sites).

JereCoh 17y ago

ptipng and advpng are great, but pngout still produces smaller files. Without it, I'll be sticking with imageoptim. I would love for someone to figure out what pngout does and start an open source implementation.

bhseo 17y ago

It would be great if you added an option to strip EXIF data from JPEGs. Or does it do that already?