Why does my image look worse after compressing?
Updated
Lossy compression (JPG, WebP, AVIF) discards detail on purpose. If quality is too low, or you re-save a JPEG that was already compressed, the damage shows as blockiness, muddy edges, and ringing around text. EditItAll cannot remove artefacts. Compress once from the original, start near quality 80, and preview. Nothing is uploaded.
Do it now — free, in your browser
Open the image compressorWhat “looks worse” usually is
Most photo compression is lossy. The encoder throws away fine detail so the file shrinks. At a sensible quality — around 80 for JPEG — that loss stays invisible on a screen. When it is visible, you are seeing the leftovers of that process:
- 8×8 block patterns in skies and skin.
- Soft or muddy edges on hair, type, and UI chrome.
- Halos or ringing around high-contrast lines.
That is not a preview bug and it is not something a second compress will polish out. The data is gone. A tool that claims to “remove compression artefacts” would need generative fill — EditItAll does not do that. Honest background: lossy vs lossless.
The three settings that wreck a photo
If a compress looks worse than the original, check these in order:
- Quality too low. On JPEG, dropping well below 70 is where most people notice. Below about 60 the picture is clearly damaged. Start at 80, preview, and only go lower if the listed file size still misses a limit.
- Repeated saves. Each JPEG encode treats the last encode’s artefacts as real detail and compresses them again. A photo that has been through WhatsApp, email, and another compressor is already a copy of a copy. You need the camera original.
- Too few pixels. A max-dimension cap (or a prior resize) that takes a 4000 px photo down to a few hundred pixels will look soft when you view it large. That is missing resolution, not only compression. See resizing vs compressing.
Graphics and screenshots belong on PNG. Forcing a logo through JPEG is a fast way to get dirty edges around type. Keep those files lossless with the PNG compressor.
Compress once, from the original
Open the image compressor and drop in the master file — the camera JPEG, the PNG export, the HEIC — not the copy that already looks bad.
- For photographs, stay on JPG or switch to WebP. Start near quality 80. Read the in → out size. If it still looks identical, you can try 75.
- There is no target-size field. Size is an output. The KB readout rounds to whole kilobytes, so aim a notch under a strict byte limit.
- Preview at 100% on a real photo, not a thumbnail. Artefacts hide in small previews.
Everything runs on your device. Files are never uploaded, EXIF is stripped on export, and the page still works offline after it loads. Web-specific JPEG advice is in compressing JPEG for the web; slider numbers are in what JPEG quality to use.
Ready to try it?
Free, no sign-up, and nothing you open ever leaves your device.
Frequently asked questions
Can I undo compression and get the original quality back?+
No. Lossy compression is one-way. If you still have the original, compress a fresh copy from that. If the only file left is the damaged one, you cannot restore the discarded detail.
Why does the preview look fine but the download looks worse?+
Small previews hide JPEG blocks. Open the downloaded file at 100%, especially in flat areas like sky. If it is still too harsh, raise quality and export again from the original.
Does compressing a PNG make it look worse?+
Not at the default setting. PNG recompress is lossless, so every pixel stays identical. If a “PNG compress” looked worse, the file was likely converted to JPG, or the quality slider was dropped far enough to reduce the colour palette.
Will lowering quality always look worse?+
On photographs, yes eventually — but around quality 80 the loss is usually invisible. The goal is the highest quality that still meets your size need, not the lowest number on the slider.
Are my images uploaded to compress them?+
No. EditItAll runs entirely in your browser. Files never leave your device, and you can go offline after the page loads.