Using the smallest images possible while preserving quality is important because small images load faster.  If your site visitors have to wait a long time for your site and images to load they are likely to just move on.  There are several methods of reducing the size of your images, here I compare four different methods, though there are certainly other methods (software).  I use Adobe Lightroom 4.2 for most of my image management and editing, with some work in Adobe Photoshop CS5 for some extra editing when needed.   To reduce the size of my images I most often used JPEGmini but then stumbled across a WordPress plugin called Smush.it,...