Skill

optimize-png

Use when the user wants to shrink PNG files in a batch — losslessly with `oxipng` (typical 20–40% reduction, byte-identical decode) or aggressively with `pngquant` (lossy palette quantisation, 60–80% reduction with near-imperceptible quality loss for web use). Web-prep workhorse.

npx claudepluginhub danielrosehill/claude-code-plugins --plugin image-production

Tool Access

This skill uses the workspace's default tool permissions.

Preview

Squeeze PNG file size. Two modes:

SKILL.md

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Optimize PNG

Squeeze PNG file size. Two modes:

lossless (default) — oxipng. Byte-identical decode. Always safe.
lossy — pngquant. Palette-quantised; visible artefacts only on smooth gradients. Right call for web/UI assets.

When to use

Web-prep: PNG screenshots, UI assets, illustrations destined for upload.
Archival: shave a few hundred MB off a folder of PNG masters losslessly.
Pre-step inside web-ready orchestrator.

Do not use this skill when:

Source is JPEG → use optimize-jpeg.
Source is RAW/HEIC/TIFF → run web-ready end-to-end first.
Quality must be bit-perfect for cryptographic hashing → only use lossless mode.

Inputs

Input — file or directory. Required.
Mode — lossless (default) or lossy.
Recursive — --recursive for directory descent.
In-place — default. --output-dir <path> to write copies.
Lossless level (mode=lossless) — oxipng -o <0..6>. Default 4. 6 is ~20% slower for ~1–2% extra compression.
Lossy quality (mode=lossy) — pngquant --quality min-max. Default 65-80 (web-good). Increase floor for sensitive material.
Strip metadata — default off. --strip removes EXIF/iTXt/zTXt/tIME chunks (oxipng --strip safe). Use when web-prep doesn't need camera info.

Procedure

Verify the relevant binary exists. which oxipng for lossless; which pngquant for lossy. If missing, point at install-deps.
Enumerate inputs (PNG only — skip non-PNG with a one-line note).
Lossless (oxipng):
```
oxipng -o <level> [--strip safe] [--out <out-dir>] "<input>"
```
In-place is the default; pass --out only if --output-dir was set. oxipng is multithreaded by default — no need to xargs-parallelise.
Lossy (pngquant):
```
pngquant --quality <min>-<max> --skip-if-larger --strip --output "<output>" "<input>"
```
--skip-if-larger is critical — pngquant occasionally produces a larger file on already-quantised inputs; this prevents inflation. --strip removes optional chunks (default off in pngquant — explicitly enable for web-prep).
Track total before/after sizes; report the savings.

Output

Optimised PNG files at the resolved paths.
Summary table:
- Files processed / skipped / failed.
- Total: <orig-MB> → <new-MB> (<pct>% saved).
- Worst compressors (files with <5% savings) — flag for inspection.

Notes

oxipng lossless on a typical screenshot: 20–40% reduction. On already-optimised PNGs (e.g. via Photoshop "Save for Web"): often 1–5%.
pngquant is irreversible. Keep originals if there's any chance the file will need further editing.
For animated PNGs (APNG): both tools handle them but check output visually first.
Combining lossy then lossless (pngquant → oxipng) gets a few extra % off — the orchestrator (web-ready) does this automatically; this skill keeps it as separate modes for explicit control.