How to Compress Images for a Portfolio Website

Photography portfolios: WebP at 85% is the standard — professional quality, invisible compression, 60% smaller than PNG. Design portfolios: WebP at 90% or PNG for work with sharp edges and flat colours where compression artefacts are noticeable. Below 80%, artefacts can be visible in areas of smooth colour (sky, skin, flat UI backgrounds).

At 85% WebP quality: no — the difference from lossless is mathematically present but visually undetectable for the content types in most portfolios. The only exception is work that's designed to be examined at very close inspection (print design, pixel art). For these, use 90–95% quality.

For photography: many professionals add a small logo watermark in a corner. This doesn't prevent image theft but associates the image with your brand when shared. For design work: watermarks can obscure the work. A better approach: low-resolution preview (not full-res file), contact form to request files, and reverse image search monitoring (Google Images, TinEye).

For image-heavy portfolios: static site generators (Astro, Next.js, Gatsby) with automatic image optimisation are fastest. They generate WebP, resize images to srcset breakpoints, and lazy-load automatically. Compared to image-unoptimised WordPress, this can be 3–5× faster initial page load — critical when a potential client has 5 seconds to decide whether to engage.