The mistake: serving giant PNGs as photos

The mistake: serving giant PNGs as photos

A frequent slip is saving photographs as PNG. PNG is built for logos and screenshots with flat colors, not detailed photos — so a photo PNG can be five times heavier than it needs to be. That bloat slows LCP — Largest Contentful Paint, the moment your biggest image finishes loading.

Think of it like mailing a sweater in a refrigerator box: technically works, wildly oversized.

How to fix it:
— Use WebP or AVIF for photos — same quality, far smaller files.
— Keep PNG only for logos, icons, and images that need transparency with sharp edges.
— Use JPEG as a safe fallback if a tool can't do WebP.

Try this: take your heaviest photo, convert it to WebP, and compare the file sizes. You'll often save 60 to 80 percent.