JPEGmini Pro To The Rescue

There are five splendid reasons to use JPEGmini Pro. Before we get into those, though, I wanted to introduce you to Mitch Schneider, Director of Marketing for the slick and useful application.

Mitch and I ran into each other at the Photo Plus Expo in New York City. It's an annual event, and the trade show floor is packed with vendors and photographers from all over the world.

Having heard of JPEGmini Pro from a couple of photographer friends, I was intrigued to find out more. So, I stood a the JPEGmini booth and watched Mitch and his colleague patiently describe their software and demonstrate how quickly it minimized file sizes, and also how efficiently it did it without any perceptible loss of the quality of the final images.

My ears perked up as Mitch spoke because for years Photoshop had a “save as web” option and when Adobe released Photoshop CC, that option just disappeared. I missed that because creating web versions of my 20mb files was a quick two-step process. Now with it gone, it was just too laborious – I had to set the resolution and then manually open, crop and then save the images. One by one. Blech! Perhaps I was doing it all wrong. In any case, it was eating away at my productivity.

As a hopeful alternative, I even looked at Dr. Russell Brown's scripts, panels and actions, but for whatever reason, I simply couldn't get those to work on my system. I desperately needed a way to scale down the photographs quickly and optimize them for the web.

When I first heard about JPEGmini and the JPEGmini Pro option, I was genuinely hopeful that it would speed up my workflow. And it has. Remarkably so, with a few additional benefits that I didn't expect!

The Interview

A few weeks back, Mitch agreed to be interviewed online to chat about JPEGmini and JPEGmini Pro. He was just as excited as I was with the new Photoshop extension that allows photographers to export out their photographs directly from Photoshop CC.

My “save for web” option was essentially back!

A Personal Example

A few months back, I upgraded to a Nikon D750. The RAW file sizes are humongous. Try 27.5 megabytes on for size! The high resolution JPEG's are approximately 14 megabytes.

Imagine if you had to upload 500 or 800 of those to ShootProof? [Affiliate Link] It would take you forever. And frankly, juggling family and professional life, who has time to baby those files like that?

So, that's why I lean on JPEGmini Pro now. If I have a batch of five or more photographs to process, they are enhanced in Photoshop and saved to a special folder. I simply drag and drop the files into JPEGmini Pro and it does its magic.

It can either save over the original files (I recommend making a copy of your files just for safety's sake) or you can have those images sent to a new folder, directing the application to constrict the photograph's width or height in the process.

Quality & Quantity

When a couple I photographed in Connecticut ordered a 20″x30″ canvas print for their home in North Carolina, I attempted to send a 14 megabyte file to Pixel2Canvas. Their online system, however, only accepts files that are 10 megabytes in size or smaller. JPEGmini Pro to the rescue!

I dropped my file into the application and it generated a 7.5 megabyte file – essentially a 47% reduction in file size – for production. And yes, I couldn't see any loss of quality and the client was thrilled with the final results.

Still not convinced? I ran into this video that shows a graphic artist who is printing large photographs for a photographer client of his. Clearly the graphic artist is stumped by how indistinguishable the regular JPEG file and the JPEGmini files are!

5 Reasons To Use JPEGmini Pro

Ok, let's get into the five reasons JPEGmini Pro is a no-brainer for any photographer.

1) Save Space

Thousands of photographs that take up space in your hard drives right now could take up even less space if you ran them through JPEGmini or JPEGmini Pro. The larger your JPG files, the greater the need you have to shrink them down. Imagine you could reduce your hard drive needs by 47%. Space saved is money saved.

2) Save Time

Do I have to tell you that uploading a 20 megabyte file takes longer than a 5 megabyte file? The time you save is money made.

3) SEO Benefits

Search engines are assigning a higher rank to those websites that load faster. If you have photographs on your site and they are 200 kilobytes or more, they are slowing your site down. Run your photographs through this app, shrink them down in file size and then upload them to your website. You'll see the difference and so will Google!

4) Extensions For Photoshop & Lightroom

Each of us has our own workflow and style. Some of us like to save full resolution JPEGs to a folder, copy the folder and then drag the files into JPEGmini Pro. Others, would prefer to send those files directly from Photoshop or Lightroom. And now you can! The company announced easy-to-install extensions into Photoshop or Lightroom that will give you direct access to JPEGmini. This again saves time (and money) in my opinion. This option is only available if you buy JPEGmini Pro, though.

5) The $99 Price

On the heels of their announcement about the Photoshop and Lightroom extensions, Beamr, JPEGmini's parent company also announced a price reduction to $99 for JPEGmini Pro. So, the price is right, right now. But this is for a limited time only.

JPEGmini or JPEGmini Pro?

I wondered that too. If I had continued using my Nikon D700, I am sure JPEGmini would have sufficed. But with the Nikon D750, the file sizes are so much bigger that I had no choice but to lean on JPEGmini Pro. That's one factor in choosing between the two options.

JPEGmini Pro as I mentioned above is now only $99 (regularly $149), whereas JPEGmini is $19.99. So, if your budget is tight, you may have to make some hard choices between the two options.

One of the five reasons should have included – speed – because JPEGmini Pro is some eight times faster than JPEGmini. It's just the way the application uses the core engines in your computer to make that magic happen.

Ok, I know making a decision sometimes can be challenging. That's why when I started to poke around this app, I downloaded the free trial to see how it worked. I suggest you do the same. Give it a try to see how much space and time you can save. I believe there is a limit of 10 photographs you can process per day. But the free trial is limited by how large your files are to begin with, so take that into consideration.

So, are you ready to give JPEGmini or JPEGmini Pro a spin?