A while ago I wrote about optimizing the images on your website. In that post I mentioned that one of the tools that I’ve used for image optimization is an online tool offered by Yahoo called Smush.it. Well I have an RSS subscription to the WordPress subreddit and came across a post the other day for a WordPress plugin called WP Smush.it. I’ve tested it out and it’s very handy. It uses Smush.it’s API to:
- auto-optimize of all of the images you upload to the Media Library
- bulk optimize your existing images
- optimize existing individual images
There’s also a NextGEN Gallery integration version for your NextGEN Gallery images. I use NextGEN on a handful of sites but haven’t tried out the Smush.it plugin for it yet.
how to use WP Smush.it
- install and enable the plugin
- smush an individual image
- bulk smush
- pre:
- post:
- pre:
It even provides you with the shrinkage statistics on all of your smushed images in the post-bulk smush report as well as on each individual image in the library.
caveats
- the bulk smush is still considered experimental
- Smush.it has a file size limitation of 1 MB for the original file
- “Sometimes the Smush.it service goes down or is under heavy load. If the plugin has difficulty connecting to Smush.it then automatically smushing is temporarily disabled (currently for 6 hours). You can always re-enable it via the
Media > Settingsscreen or manually smush the image from the Media Library.”
