Image Tools

Image editing that runs on your device, not a server

Every tool in this category processes your files locally using the browser's Canvas and WebAssembly APIs. Your images are read into memory, transformed, and handed back as a download without ever being transmitted. That design has three practical consequences: there is no upload wait, there is no queue during busy periods, and photos you would not want sitting on someone else's server — identity documents, unreleased product shots, personal pictures — never leave your machine.

Picking the right tool for the job

The distinction that trips people up most is compressing versus resizing. Compression reduces the number of bytes used to store the same pixel grid, so dimensions stay identical and quality drops slightly. Resizing reduces the pixel grid itself, which cuts file size far more aggressively but permanently discards detail. If a photo is too large for an upload limit, resize first and compress second — that order preserves noticeably more quality than the reverse. Cropping changes composition and aspect ratio and should always come before either.

Formats worth knowing

JPEG remains the right default for photographs, offering broad compatibility and efficient compression of continuous tones. PNG is lossless and supports transparency, making it correct for logos, screenshots, and anything with sharp text edges — but a PNG photograph can be five to ten times larger than the JPEG equivalent. WebP is typically 25 to 35% smaller than JPEG at matched quality with near-universal browser support, making it the strongest choice for images you serve from your own site. HEIC is the iPhone default and needs converting before most platforms will accept it.

A note on metadata

Photos taken on a phone commonly embed GPS coordinates accurate to a few metres, a capture timestamp, and the device model. None of this is visible when you view the picture, and all of it travels with the file when you share it. Re-encoding an image during compression usually strips these fields as a side effect, but if privacy is the actual goal, use the dedicated metadata remover, which reports exactly what it found before clearing it.