How to Compress Photos

Blubox
Blubox is a powerful image compression software that is made for the Windows Operating System. Blubox allows users to manage their photos by comprehensively organizing them in a list of archives, folders, and web folders. Blubox is able to compress images by up to 90% while maintaining image quality. Blubox can handle a wide variety of image file formats including JPEG, TIFF, and BMP. Blubox can use photos to create slideshows and can email both images and slideshows directly from within the user interface. Blubox is completely free and is available at http://www.blubox.com/ .

PhotoELF
PhotoELF is a photo compression software that is specifically designed to convert images into JPG and JPEG before compression. Users are able to set compression levels in order to balance file size and image quality. This allows the user to manually configure the image to an appropriate quality level before compression even begins. PhotoELF displays thumbnails of all of the pictures that the user has stored on his/her computer. By selecting one or more image and choosing between "Batch JPG Compress" or "JPG Compress", the software can automatically convert each of the files into JPG and compress them at the user's preset compression level. PhotoELF is available for $39.99 from http://www.photoelf.com/batch/compression.shtml .

Rawzor
Rawzor is a free image compression software made for Windows that allows users to compress their camera's images without losing image quality. When Rawzor compresses an image, its output file is exactly the same as its input file. This means that the user never loses image quality while compressing images to between 20% and 60% of their original size. Rawzor supports virtually all raw image file formats and includes features for storage, backup, archival, uploads, downloads, and DVD transfers. Rawzor is available at http://www.rawzor.com/ .

JPEG Wizard
JPEG Wizard is a highly interactive JPEG image editing software that is able to compress images 20%-70% more than other image editors while maintaining a high level of image quality. The software introduces regional compression that allows users to select and compress specific parts of an image at one compression level and other parts at another compression level, allowing for images to focus higher levels of quality on specific items while sacrificing quality in less important areas. JPEG Wizard also includes a batch editor that allows users to compress many different images at the same time or apply other modifications such as cropping, resizing, copying, watermarking, or even red eye removal. JPEG Wizard is available for $29 without the batch editor and $69 with the batch editor from http://www.accusoft.com/jpegwizfeatures.htm .

Quick ePics
Quick ePics is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) JPEG image editor. Quick ePics allows users to edit images and see the results as they make changes. This limits editing time as the user is not forced to upload multiple copies of the same file in order to make accurate changes. Quick ePics also allows users to set an image's compression level in order to maintain preferred quality. The software allows users to modify JPEG images simply by dragging and dropping them into the user interface. The program is also able to modify batch files that all have the same caption, title, or theme. Quick ePics is available for $19.95 from http://www.missionpeaksoftware.com/ .