Shrinking JPEGs and stripping meta data

[BabyJeffy]

I wanted to share with you a tool that I use from time to time to reduce the size of the JPEGs on sites I work on.

JStrip Lite -

http://davidcrowell.com/jStripLite.aspx

jStrip Lite removes unneeded portions of JPEG files. Because the compressed image data is not modified, there is no image quality loss. Smaller JPEG files mean less bandwidth used for webmasters, and less hard drive space required for everyone.

It requires DOS (so it's not immediately going to be of a lot of use for Mac developers) and works as a command-line program. It's fast, free and does exactly what it says it does.

I ran the images directory for one of my sites through this and managed to shave a good 6% of the over-all file size of all images. This is great news if you have a high-bandwidth site with lots if images.

The tool removes the meta data that is often saved within JPEGs. This may be the model of the digital camera that took the original, the date it was taken etc. It's not really a lot of information, but if you have many small images it will add up.

For those using Photoshop, if you use the "Save for Web" option, then I believe it removes the meta data for you (and so this tool would be of less value).

Try it and let us all know how you go!

Cheers,
Jeff

[tt]Jeff's Page [/tt][tt]@[/tt][tt] Code Couch

http://www.codecouch.com/jeff/

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