How to reduce the image file size using PIL

Solution 1:

A built-in parameter for saving JPEGs and PNGs is optimize.

 >>> from PIL import Image
 # My image is a 200x374 jpeg that is 102kb large
 >>> foo = Image.open("path\\to\\image.jpg")
 >>> foo.size
  (200,374)
 # I downsize the image with an ANTIALIAS filter (gives the highest quality)
 >>> foo = foo.resize((160,300),Image.ANTIALIAS)
 >>> foo.save("path\\to\\save\\image_scaled.jpg",quality=95)
 # The saved downsized image size is 24.8kb
 >>> foo.save("path\\to\\save\\image_scaled_opt.jpg",optimize=True,quality=95)
 # The saved downsized image size is 22.9kb

The optimize flag will do an extra pass on the image to find a way to reduce its size as much as possible. 1.9kb might not seem like much, but over hundreds/thousands of pictures, it can add up.

Now to try and get it down to 5kb to 10 kb, you can change the quality value in the save options. Using a quality of 85 instead of 95 in this case would yield: Unoptimized: 15.1kb Optimized : 14.3kb Using a quality of 75 (default if argument is left out) would yield: Unoptimized: 11.8kb Optimized : 11.2kb

I prefer quality 85 with optimize because the quality isn't affected much, and the file size is much smaller.

Solution 2:

lets say you have a model called Book and on it a field called 'cover_pic', in that case, you can do the following to compress the image:

from PIL import Image
b = Book.objects.get(title='Into the wild')
image = Image.open(b.cover_pic.path)
image.save(b.image.path,quality=20,optimize=True)

hope it helps to anyone stumbling upon it.