Color And Voice: ImageOptim — make websites and apps load faster (Mac app)

Contact
ImageAlpha
Download
Version 1.4.0
Mac OS X 10.6-10.7
Not using Mac? Check out Trimage
Leopard (10.5) version
Beta build 1.4.1a4
Changelog
Bugs
Source code
Available in:
English, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese and Polish. Help translate it!
ImageOptim optimizes images — so they take up less disk space and load faster — by finding best compression parameters and by removing unnecessary comments and color profiles. It handles PNG, JPEG and GIF animations.
ImageOptim seamlessly integrates various optimisation tools: PNGOUT, AdvPNG, Pngcrush, extended OptiPNG, JpegOptim, jpegrescan, jpegtran, and Gifsicle.
It's excellent for publishing images on the web (easily shrinks images “Saved for Web” in Photoshop) and also useful for making Mac and iPhone/iPad applications smaller (see Xcode warning).
How to use it
Simply drag'n'drop images or folders into the window! You can also drop files on ImageOptim's Dock icon or launch it from shell scripts with: open -a ImageOptim.app *.png.
If you install this system service you can run ImageOptim from Finder's context menu.
More about PNG
My article “PNG that works” explains why ImageOptim removes gamma information and how to get even smaller PNG files with transparency that works in ancient versions of IE.
Open Source
ImageOptim is free, open-source software under terms of the GPL v2. Your contributions are welcome! Please grab the source code and improve it! Feel free to contact me for assistance.
PNGOUT is bundled with permission of Ardfry Imaging, LLC and is not covered by the GPL.
Frequent answers
Photoshop munges optimized PNGs!
ImageOptim converts images to PNG8 alpha format when that is possible without loss of quality. That's the most efficient way to store alpha channel.
Photoshop CS5 and older have a bug which causes such images to be loaded incorrectly. The bug is fixed in Photoshop CS6.
To undo optimisations and get the big fat, old-Photoshop-compatible PNG back, open PNG in Preview.app and save it again (“Export” in Lion).
Alternatively, switch to Fireworks or only optimize copies/final versions of images.
Will ImageOptim be in the AppStore?
Unfortunately not, because Apple has explicitly forbidden publication of Free (as in freedom) Software in the AppStore. You can get ImageOptim here, without DRM.
Using The Unarchiver 3.1?
Due to bugs in Mac OS X Quarantine/Sandbox features the archive will not extract properly with The Unarchiver 3.1. Please get fixed version from author's website (not the AppStore).
Site designed by Auforia.