JPEG Quality Comparator (Side-by-Side)
Drop an image, see it re-encoded at JPEG quality 95 / 85 / 75 / 60 / 40 side by side, with file sizes. Useful for picking the lowest quality that still looks acceptable for your use case — saves 30-70% on page weight vs always shipping quality 95.
How to use the JPEG Quality Comparator (Side-by-Side)
Drop an image. The tool re-encodes at five JPEG quality levels (95, 85, 75, 60, 40) and shows each result side by side with the file size. Zoom in (use your browser zoom) to compare artifacts. Pick the lowest quality where you can't tell the difference at normal view size — usually 75-85 for photos, lower for logos and graphics.
Finding the lowest acceptable JPEG quality
JPEG quality is a trade-off: high settings look pristine but bloat the file, low settings shrink it but introduce blocky artifacts. The catch is that the right setting depends entirely on the image — a soft photo tolerates aggressive compression that would wreck a sharp logo — so a single fixed quality is rarely optimal.
This comparator re-encodes your image at five quality levels (95, 85, 75, 60, 40) and shows them side by side with file sizes, so you can spot the point where artifacts become visible and stop just above it. Picking quality 80 over 95 commonly cuts file size by half. Once you have chosen a level, apply it in the image compressor.
Common use cases
- Quality tuning — find the lowest setting that still looks clean.
- Page-weight savings — cut image size by choosing the right level.
- Photo vs graphic — see how each type tolerates compression differently.
- Visual QA — confirm artifacts aren't visible before shipping.
- Bandwidth budgets — balance fidelity against file size deliberately.