If you’re in the business of image transfer and storage or if you just have a website with some high-quality photos that take forever to load, listen up because Google might just have what you need.
Google continues to have the answer to literally everything. They have recently announced a method of data compression that maintains maximum image quality while reducing the size of the file significantly. This method is fairly new when it comes to jpeg compression, and while it is still lossy compression, you’re losing a whole lot less than if you use a different method.
The question that remains is how Google managed to achieve this. The short answer is that Google can essentially do everything you can possibly think of given the right amount of time. The more accurate answer is a little longer. Here’s how Google manages to be number one when it comes to jpeg compression:
* Firstly, let me explain how exactly jpeg image compression works. This method exploits flaws in human vision by removing color and detail that we cannot or have trouble detecting.
This method converts a photo from RGB to a different color space called YCbCr. Y has everything to do with brightness, which is what humans detect the most and it goes largely untouched by compression. Cb and Cr are targeted by compression as they contain color that humans wouldn’t notice if it went missing.
The method breaks the photos up into 8×8 groups of pixels and determines which color information is important and deletes what can go without being detected.
* Google’s method is not very much different. The change comes in the last part of the process where the color information is discarded.
The program, nicknamed Guetzil which is German for cookie, eliminates color information in a very meticulous way so that it allow the image to resize without compromising the overall quality. The way it does this is by eliminating extra colors that the human eye can’t discern from one another.
* The most important feature of this kind of compression is how the image doesn’t need to be changed for it to be compatible with multiple browsers.
Usually when you compress an image the format changes so that browsers read it differently which causes problems when you’re putting this image on say a website.
This takes out an extra step in your image compression process and allows for your site to look great across all platforms without compromising quality for an oversized file that takes forever to load.
Google knows how important it is for the web to be fast. It makes sense why they would develop this different kind of compression process. In all Guetizil is the best option for your image compression needs.
You get to have an image that doesn’t look like it went through a lossy compression process at all and that is compatable across all browsers. Basically Google is god, especially when it comes to the web.
Check out the video below for more about this!