Image optimization

Uploadcare allows you to optimize images to improve the performance of your website or application without sacrificing its quality.

There are a few steps how to achieve this:

  1. Scaling images, such as resize and crop, have the biggest effect.
  2. Further optimization of the image quality of the resulting image, especially for high pixel ratios.
  3. Delivering the most efficient format that the client’s browser supports.

It’s important to do all three of them to achieve the best results. With Uploadcare, you don’t have to worry about it, we take care about all three of them.

How it works

Every URL transformation generates a modified image version on the fly, while the original file stays intact. The transformed image version will be cached on CDN nodes to optimize delivery.

https://ucarecdn.com/85b5644f-e692-4855-9db0-8c5a83096e25/-/preview/
https://ucarecdn.com/:uuid/-/preview/

The optimal format has already been selected since the scaling operation is applied (-/preview/ in this example).

If you enable adaptive quality in the Dashboard, your images will be optimized automatically. This function works when applying any URL operations.

You can manually set the required compression parameters.

You can optimize images you already have by fetching and delivering them without explicitly uploading them:

https://yoursite.ucr.io/-/resize/500x/https://yoursite.com/assets/image.jpg

Table of Contents

ArticleDescription
Adaptive image componentThe web component for efficient image representation on any page
Responsive images guideWhen developing a website, implementing responsive designs means handling responsive images, the ones that can adapt to user devices and browsers
Image compressionCompression is essential for improving the performance of your website or application. Reducing image size without sacrificing quality is critical factor to consider
Scaling operationsRather than delivering large, full-sized images and relying on the browser to resize them, you can do it programmatically
Animated images optimizationGif to video operation converts animated image files, such as GIF, WebP, and HEIC, to video and transforms them on the fly
About Uploadcare CDNUploadcare CDN stands out by offering dynamic image modifications. This allows on-the-fly image optimization and transformation
URL APIList of all CDN operations, its limitations, and settings