In Operation
Crunch is very simple to use. We can process images by simply providing one or more PNG image paths as arguments:
$ crunch [image path 1]...[image path n]
We can use wildcards. For example to process all the images in our Images folder, we can issue the command:
$ crunch ~/Images/*.png
As the above image shows, the program reports the % of original image size, the optimized image file path, and the final optimized image size in bytes. We’re showing the directory contents using a human-readable format. Crunch doesn’t offer an option to overwrite the original images.
While the optimizing is CPU intensive, Crunch spawns multiple processes when multiple images are optimized. This parallel processing hugely reduces the time to process a directory of images with a multi-core machine. We tested the software on a 12 core processor.
Let’s show you a couple of the images.
Original image: Size 296K
Processed image: Size 95K
Original image: Size 335K
Processed image: Size 118K
Summary
Crunch is a useful tool to compress PNGs. The heavy lifting is performed by zopflipng and pngquant.
The developer doesn’t have any plans to support other image types such as JPEGs. So you’ll need to use a different program if you want to optimize non PNG images.
For Linux, Crunch is strictly a CLI affair. There is a GUI program available but it’s for macOS only.
LinuxLinks is always conscious of bandwidth. Unlike many websites, we compress images with lossy compression.
Website: github.com/chrissimpkins/Crunch
Support:
Developer: Christopher Simpkins
License: MIT License
Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Introduction and Installation
Page 2 – In Operation and Summary
Related Software
| Console Based Image Compression Tools | |
|---|---|
| MozJPEG | Mozilla JPEG Encoder Project |
| pngquant | Utility and a library for lossy compression of PNG images |
| SVGO | Node.js library and command-line application for optimizing SVG files |
| Oxipng | Multithreaded PNG optimizer, forked from Optipng |
| libjxl | Reference implementation of JPEG XL |
| libjpeg-turbo | JPEG image codec |
| QOI | The Quite OK Image Format |
| YOGA | Yummy Optimizer for Gorgeous Assets |
| pngcrush | Optimizer for PNG files |
| jpegoptim | Optimize JPEG files. Lossless and lossy compression available |
| OptiPNG | Advanced PNG optimizer |
| Guetzli | Perceptual JPEG encoder with excellent compression density at high quality |
| ECT | Fast and effective C++ file optimizer |
| Crunch | Lossy PNG image file optimization |
| zopflipng | PNG optimisation tool using zopfli |
| JPEG Archive | Utilities for archive JPEGs for long term storage |
| optimizt | CLI image optimization tool |
| picopt | Multi format lossless image optimize |
| tinifier | CLI tool for compressing images using the TinyPNG API |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
 Explore our comprehensive directory of recommended free and open source software. Our carefully curated collection spans every major software category.This directory is part of our ongoing series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. It features hundreds of detailed reviews, along with open source alternatives to proprietary solutions from major corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. You’ll also find interesting projects to try, hardware coverage, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. Discovered a useful open source Linux program that we haven’t covered yet? Let us know by completing this form. |