JPEG COMPRESSION EXAMPLE

This image contains subtle color gradients as well as hard-edged textures, so we'll be able to see how well these subjects fair with increased compression.

Absolutely indistinguishable from the previous image, yet half the filesize. Isn't compression wonderful?

Less than a third of the first image's filesize, and still indistinguishable from the first image.

Still a great image, but the filesize reduction is becoming less and less significant. We could just go with this one, since experience tells us that we can't trim any more than a few more seconds off the load time before the image quality is noticeably affected, but let's remember that every bit of reduction we can squeeze out of each image can add up to something significant. Let's keep going.

This is getting a little boring.

Boring. When is this damn thing going to start getting ugly?

Highlights and shadows still smooth. Texture is still true.

If you jump back a few images, you can barely make out some differences in the quality of the color gradients in the red plastic handle. But for the 1200 byte savings over the previous image, I find this image acceptable.

We can now clearly see the reds breaking down even more. I think we've gone too far. At this point, I'd back up and choose the previous image.

Those subtle hues are really suffering now, and the textured areas are losing definition.

Nasty.