Even though I’ve been using it for years, I didn’t realize until recently that WordPress compresses uploaded images to 90 percent.
The WP Resized Image Quality plugin adds an option in Settings that features a slider so you can change the compression level.
I get why the WP devs probably think compressing uploaded images is a good idea (they are wrong, but I get why they think this is a good idea), but compressing images and not building in a setting where this can be adjusted without adding a plugin or editing a PHP file is ridiculous.
Hey Brian, I’m Mike, the author of this plugin. Happy to hear you like it.
The WordPress devs chose to apply some image compression so people wouldn’t blame WordPress for slow pages as much. Many, many users of WP just upload straight from their camera but wonder why the page loads slowly. On the other hand, like you mention it’s unfortunate this isn’t commonly known.
The lack of an easy way to change that setting in WP is why I built this plugin. And, because all the existing image compression plugins have setup pages that look like a NASA launch console (ok, not quite that bad). Let me know if you have any suggestions on making it simpler or better.