the.com/image compression
the art of losing just enough of a picture that nobody notices it's gone.
means a set of techniques for shrinking image file size by removing redundant or less-noticeable data.
from rooted in 1970s information theory, it exploded with jpeg in 1992, a joint committee standard built on discrete cosine transforms that quietly reshaped how the entire internet moves pictures.
lossy mathjpeg discards data humans barely perceive, not randomly
png tradeofflossless, but files stay heavier than jpeg forever
webp gainsoften 30 percent smaller than jpeg at same quality
repeated savesre-saving a jpeg degrades it a little each time
for instance
jpeg 1992 — iso standard that made photos shareable over slow modems
gif 1987 — compuserve format that compressed color with a small palette trick
webp 2010 — google format cutting page weight across billions of sites
jpeg 2000 — technically superior successor that never won public adoption