Compression Presets Explained

Crush.pics offers several compression presets that control how aggressively your images are compressed. Choosing the right preset depends on the kind of store you run and how important image quality is relative to page speed.

The Presets

Conservative

Lossless compression reduces file size without removing any image data. The output is pixel-perfect — identical to the original at full zoom.

Quality impact: None
File size savings: Modest (typically 1–20%)
Best for: Stores where image fidelity is critical — jewellery, fine art, photography, print-on-demand

Balanced (Recommended)

Balanced uses lossy compression tuned to produce savings that are meaningful for page speed, while keeping quality high enough that differences are not visible to the human eye in normal browsing conditions.

Quality impact: Minimal — imperceptible to most visitors
File size savings: Usually Significant (typically 40–70%)
Best for: The majority of Shopify stores — apparel, homeware, general retail

Custom

Custom compression can push file sizes down as far as possible. The quality reduction may be noticeable on very large or zoomed-in images, but the performance gains can be substantial.

Quality impact: Moderate — may be noticeable on close inspection
File size savings: Maximum (can exceed 70–80%)
Best for: Stores prioritising load speed above all else, or where images are displayed small (e.g. thumbnails, icon-sized graphics)

Which Preset Should I Use?

For most stores, Balanced is the right choice. It delivers the majority of the performance benefit with no visible trade-off in image quality.

If you’re selling products where fine detail matters — think high-resolution product shots your customers zoom in on — consider Conservative or testing Balanced against your actual images before committing.

If your store images already look great and load speed is your primary concern, Custom is worth considering.

Changing Your Preset

You can change your preset at any time under Settings > Compression. The new preset applies to images compressed from that point forward — it doesn’t retroactively reprocess previously compressed images.

If you want to recompress existing images with a different preset, restore them first and then run a new compression. See Restoring Images.