Optimising photos and videos for websites

Why optimise?

Modern cameras can take massive photos both in size (pixels) and file size (MB).

Not everyone has a super-fast Internet connection. Large photos and videos will cause a web page to open slowly.

These days people don't have time to wait for slow-loading pages, which won't do anything to keep your visitors.

With the correct optimisation techniques applied, it is still possible to have a decent-sized video on your site that can be viewed at a full-screen size of 1920px x 1080px.

Reducing the sizes is easily fixed with optimisation, and we have the software to take care of it professionally for both photos and videos.

Sizes

Photos

To keep your page looking neat, photo sizes in the main content sections should have the same dimensions.

Full-width photos should have a width of 1920 pixels.

Photo slideshows and light boxes should have photos with the same dimensions.

Videos

For full-screen videos, 1920 x 1080 pixels, which is an aspect ratio of 16:9, is best.

For those concerned that portrait format videos are better than landscape format, please remember pressing the full-screen button will automatically open the video horizontally.

Multiple videos on the same web page should have exactly the same dimensions and aspect ratios.

If you intend to put background audio on your videos, ensure you are not breaching any copyright laws.

Photos

Before optimisation: 7.04 MB / 6000 x 4000 pixels - Slow Loading

After optimisation: 256 KB / 1280 x 853 pixels - Fast Loading

After further size reduction: 186 KB / 1000 x 667 pixels - Very Fast Loading

Videos

Before optimisation: 19.9 MB - Slow Loading

After optimisation: 9.90 MB - Fast Loading

Optimised for mobiles: 2.25 MB - Very Fast Loading

We can set this version to display on mobiles only, with a larger version displaying on higher-spec devices with bigger screens.

Please note: If you are viewing this mobile-optimised option on a large screen, the video will appear slightly out of focus if you select the fullscreen mode. As it is a much smaller video compared to the other two versions, this is normal.