Free Image Tools

Image operations aren't independent steps you can run in any sequence. Each one changes the pixels the next one reads, and running them in the wrong order costs you quality that cannot be recovered afterwards. There's a correct order, and it's worth following even for quick jobs.

Crop, then resize, then edit, then convert, then compress

Compression should always be last. Compressing first and resizing afterwards throws away the work, because the resize resamples the already-damaged pixels and the compression artifacts get scaled up along with the image. Doing it the other way round means the compressor is working on final dimensions and can spend its budget on detail you're actually keeping.

Filters and color adjustments belong before compression for the same reason. Increasing contrast on a compressed image amplifies whatever blocking and ringing the compression introduced, turning invisible artifacts into visible ones. Applied to a clean image and compressed afterwards, the same adjustment costs nothing.

Always start from the original

Lossy formats degrade every time they are saved, and the loss accumulates silently. An image that has been opened, tweaked and re-saved several times looks noticeably worse than the same edits applied once to the original, even though no individual save looked destructive. Keep the source file and re-derive from it rather than editing your own exports.

This is also why converting a compressed image to a lossless format recovers nothing. The detail was discarded at the first lossy save, and a lossless format simply preserves the damaged version faithfully at a larger file size.

Decide the format from the content

Photographs, where color varies smoothly, suit lossy compression. Screenshots, diagrams, logos and anything with hard edges or flat color suit lossless, because lossy compression puts visible noise around every sharp line. If the image needs to sit on a varying background it needs an alpha channel, which rules out formats that have none. Getting this decision right usually saves more bytes than tuning a quality slider ever will.