How to intelligently "shrink" JPGs (family photographs)

KingFatty

Diamond Member
Dec 29, 2010
3,034
1
81
I would like to have a tool that intelligently considered my photo collection, and shrank the JPGs where applicable.

More specifically, it would look at a JPG, see that the details in the JPG won't be affected by a higher compression ratio, and then re-compress the JPG using a more aggressive compression (e.g., a lower quality setting).

Typically I'd use the default "quality" setting in my camera, but for many images, that's just unnecessarily making the file size bigger than needed.

Everything I've seen fails to offer this feature, except one tool: http://www.jpegmini.com/

However, jpegmini is not available for windows. Anything out there that can do what jpegmini does, but for windows?

I don't want a "dumb" recompression that would just recompress all my photos, because some photos would be excessively harmed and lose detail. So that's what I'm looking for, the "smart" analysis that jpegmini does when determining how much native JPG compression may be applied.

Ideally it would also preserve all the metadata, such as the date picture was taken and comments etc.
 

corkyg

Elite Member | Peripherals
Super Moderator
Mar 4, 2000
27,370
239
106
Sometimes you can simply crop the important part. That reduces the total number of pixels in the JPG but does not change the pixel count in the desired area.
 

MrColin

Platinum Member
May 21, 2003
2,403
3
81
30 day CS6 trial from adobe.
Sort en masse using Adobe Bridge, create/use various optimization scripts or macros in PS on the sorted images.

I believe GIMP will do it with python scripting too.
 

smitbret

Diamond Member
Jul 27, 2006
3,382
17
81
Don't shrink 'em, just get a new external HDD. A 500GB is about $50. Your time alone should be worth that, not too mention you won't have to compromise on quality.
 

lxskllr

No Lifer
Nov 30, 2004
57,981
8,220
126
Don't shrink 'em, just get a new external HDD. A 500GB is about $50. Your time alone should be worth that, not too mention you won't have to compromise on quality.

This would be my inclination also, especially if you're dealing with tons of images. I don't trust automated compression where it use some kind(what kind?) of algorithm to decide what to to adjust. The question would always be in my head whether it screwed something up or not, and once the original's gone, that's it.