Image optimization for small teams

This is one of those topics that looks small until it costs you something. Most advice about image optimization assumes a team that does not exist at your size. Here is the version that does not.

Speed is a feature people notice only in its absence, and then they leave rather than complain. Doing this properly once is usually cheaper than doing it approximately three times.

What to keep

Images are usually the largest thing on a page. This is the sort of thing that compounds, quietly, in both directions. The practical test is whether someone new to the project could tell, in a minute, that it had been handled.

What to drop

Process that exists to coordinate ten people is overhead when there are two of you. There is a version of this that is over-engineered, and it is worth avoiding.

How we handle it

Serving a 3000px image into a 400px slot is pure waste. In practice this is a scheduling problem more than a technical one. Assume whoever inherits this will have half your context and none of your patience.

What this looks like day to day

Performance work is mostly subtraction, which makes it unpopular and effective. Three things worth confirming about image optimization before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Modern formats cut file size substantially at the same quality — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

Worth checking on your own setup before it becomes someone else's problem to fix.