People are confusing compression and resizing. In the past, if opting for the unlimited option, images were resized down to a max size of 2048px on the longest edge. They were ALSO compressed subtly to save storage space in the cloud.
Now they are just compressed, or optimized if they are <16MP. You can still have a beautiful, detailed photo compressed and look great and be printable. For example look at this service http://www.jpegmini.com/ - it compresses the image without resizing it and retains the visual integrity of the image, but saves considerable space.
Your file size sounds pretty decent to me. My clients are mostly photographers and prefer things to be higher quality & slower, so the 500kb-1MB (@~2000x1300px) range is more common than it probably should be. I don't think there's any set rules, different images react to JPEG compression differently. Some compress well and others don't as much.
JPEGmini is a nice tool that does a good job of finding the sweet spot between quality and file size.
Same with ImageOptim if you're on a Mac (Which uses https://github.com/tjko/jpegoptim for JPEG's).
The funny thing is that if you apply modern video coding advances to JPEG (without making a new format!), you'd be surprised at the quality increase you can make.
It's just that everyone is using that single free JPEG library made in the early 90's...still using 90's technology.
Here's a few guys trying to commercialize that idea: http://www.jpegmini.com/
made by http://www.jpegmini.com/ - company for image compression :D :D
EDIT: It goes deeper! :D jpegmini.com webpage is associated (maybe it's the same company?) with Beamr.com, a video compression company. I guess those companies can be real but them doing Silicon Valley page? Great joke! :D
It's stealth spam, this account is an hour old ... first comment is on a post from the JPEGMini blog about how "well written" the blog post is.
Dror Gill is also the CTO of JPEGMini ... would be a hell of a coincidence if this "Gill" wasn't related, IMO.
How much further? One of the things that drives me nuts about Google Page Speed Insights is that it's a diagnostic tool pretending to be a grading tool. I've seen it dock points from a site for "uncompressed" images that are only a couple of KB (or a literal handful of bytes) in difference from whatever compression algorithm it's calculating with.
GPSI has no since of scale of issues (often meaning they're non-issues) or trade-offs (e.g. an important image that you need to be higher quality even if that means an extra tenth of a second in average load time). So don't go out of your way chasing a meaningless GPSI score if there's not actually a problem.
But to answer your actual question, I love TinyPNG (has a WordPress plugin, works for JPEGs too) for the vast majority of my images. And JPEGmini is the best I've found for optimizing big hero image photos with no visible quality loss; seriously, it's some kind of witchcraft.
I just used the Lena Reference Image really quickly with this tool, this mozjpeg online tool, jpegmini online and tinypng. The only one that beat it was a webp image ( @ quality "70") -- jpeg200 or jxr didn't get as close but I didn't mess with any settings -- buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut this isn't a very scientific study
There's to many variables right now for me to do a good comparison.... which is why i chose those tools I did because others could try it too.... and im not set up currently to do it.. hope this helps anyone! - and please anyone don't tell me "you shoulda done <insert here>" I know... this is just for reference :-)
Too add to what the other commenters have said: once you've got your images make sure to resize them to the resolution you want to use them on your site an reduce their size (eg. http://www.jpegmini.com).
Another vote for squarespace. I used the Ishimoto template with tweaks. Very happy with the results.
One recommendation - make sure you save your images down for web so large galleries or portfolios don't slow down your page load times. I think I got this tip from this sub, but jpeg mini has been a huge help to me.
Grunt and Imagemin are probably the best.
You could also use:
Smush.it - Web App
Compressor.io - Web App
Jpegmini - Mac App.
If the image has transparency, use .png; if not, use .jpg. Run all files through JPEGMini or Kraken
When compressing images, a lossy image will have the most compression but may have artifacts left over that are noticable. A lossless image won't always compress as much as lossy, but it will maintain it's original quality wherein you won't usually be able to notice any difference.
Your images are too large, the hosting is too slow (Bandwith/Latency). I would suggest doing these 2 things.
1) Use compressed images, this is a must. Use http://www.jpegmini.com/main/shrink_photo to see the difference. You can also use imgur.com as image link (Imgur will count as a CDN for this file).
2) Use a CDN like Cloudflare to accelerate your website. If you are unfamiliar with Cloudflare I highly suggest checking them out. They have a free plan and they are awesome!
2 MB is a joke.
If you have a very small size target don't let InDesign be in charge of your image compression. Instead, compress your images first and then have InDesign create the PDF without re-compressing things.
Not all compression algorithms are equal. You can export a JPG from Photoshop but there will still be room to compress without any quality degradation by using programs like this:
If you're on Windows check out the recommended programs at the bottom: https://imageoptim.com/versions.html
You can also use a program like this that will compress it further with some loss in quality, but they try to be imperceptible: http://www.jpegmini.com/app
If it's a line drawing try to keep it vector (even though the line weight won't be perfect). If you have a lot of trees and complex geometry you might be better off saving it as a PNG (try both). If your line drawing has shading in it you'll probably be best off with a JPG.
In the PDF and/or email include a link to a PDF with larger images and maybe more projects.
Google Photos is awesome and frustrating. I ended up using a program called JPEGmini to create a small version of my photo library, then sync that to Google Drive with the $1.99/mo 100GB plan. Also note that Amazon Cloud Drive now has some of the same features as Google Photos (like facial/object recognition) and is free with Prime for photos (or $60/year unlimited everything).
For jpeg compression I've been really impressed with JpegMini, which has both a consumer product, an enterprise command line tool and a standalone server you can rent through Amazon.
And no, I don't work for them.
Takes a really long time to load. This image: needs to be optimised. It's gigantic. I'd reduce the size & run it through software such as ImageOptim or JpegMini.
You should do this with all of your images. They don't need to render perfectly on a 2550x1440 resolution (which is what I'm viewing from).
Load times are important. Especially when you're already hindered by being on Squarespace.
After you get your photos fixed up, slim them down. Use a tool like JPEGmini or ImageOptim to shrink their filesize and reduce bandwidth and time spent serving them up. Being able to view the photo quickly is nearly as important as the photo looking nice.
Happy to be of assistance.
It's a great bundle and you'll get so much use of it through the years. There are a few applications that do very niche things so well that they're worth paying a bit for it: JPEGmini for compressing photos is in that same category
Seriously. It's completely awesome. I've been using it on all of my images for delivery to clients for months and haven't had a single issue. The space savings are fantastic.
No, not at all. You can use any image you want. You simply need to pre process them a little. The website I mentioned before, tinpng.com is great for png files. I wound up buying thier photoshop plugin. For jpegs you can use Photoshop or any other image tool that has a Save For Web function. There is also JpegMini. A cool, simple tool for reducing jpeg files sizes.
One other tool I suggest is the Imsanity plugin for wordpress. IT will ensure that you never upload a crazy huge image. It auto reduces all images to whatever maximium size you decide. 1024x1024 with jpeg compression of 90. This alone would take care of more than half the problem on your site. However it will not work on images that are already uploaded. Those you will need to download via FTP and reupload. For that there is a great plugin called Enable Media Replace in the Wordpress.org plugin site. It adds a link to the media library so that you can replace an image easily without having to worry about breaking any links or edit any content.
Good luck!
I would highly advise the use of jpegmini.com, it's compression is far superior to photoshop. They also have a jpegmini webserver which would be ideal but that's not cheap. The WP Smush.it plugin can also be used in combo for some additional lossless optimization. There is a thumbnail regeneration plugin that could be helpful as well (instead of them being resized dynamically) but I've had trouble with that. Finally, make sure every other part of the site is well optimized.
I recommend this compressor: http://www.jpegmini.com/.
I've put photos into there where the file size has been reduced as much as 75% of the original image without any noticeable loss of quality.
For normal fast day to day work, Irfanview with the RIOT plugin works fine.
If you need the files to be as small as they can get, then ScriptPNG and ScriptJPG are awesome.
If you reconsider online tools then JPEGmini can make a smaller jpeg (with similar quality) than any other tool I've seen.
It looks like an algorithm to simply adapt the compression rate. Here is the (BS sounding) FAQ : http://www.jpegmini.com/main/technology.
Any independent and serious test ?