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Articles by Arhan Ahmad
Image formats explained: When to use JPG vs PNG vs WebP vs AVIF in 2026
Choosing the wrong image format costs you page speed, user experience, and bandwidth. Here's a practical guide to the four major formats and when each makes sense. JPEG (JPG) — Still the universal standard Best for: Photographs, complex images with many colors. JPEG uses lossy compression that works well for natural scenes. It's supported everywhere. The downsides: no transparency, no animation, and visible artefacts at very low quality settings.
Why I built a privacy-first image tool that runs entirely in your browser
Every time you upload a photo to an online image tool, you're sending it to someone's server. Maybe you're okay with that. But what if the image contains sensitive information? A screenshot of a private conversation. A photo with GPS coordinates embedded in the metadata. A design mockup for a product that hasn't launched yet. This is why I built ToolBox Image — a free image toolkit where every single tool runs 100% in your browser using Canvas API and WebAssembly. Nothing is uploaded. Nothing is stored.
How to reduce image file size without losing quality (5 techniques)
The most common question I hear is, "How do I make this image smaller without making it look worse?" Here are five techniques that work every time. 1. Switch to a modern format This is the single biggest lever. Converting a JPEG to WebP saves 25-35% with no visible difference. Converting to AVIF saves 50-60%. 2. Remove invisible metadata Every photo from a modern smartphone carries embedded EXIF data — camera model, GPS coordinates, date, settings. This metadata can add 50-200 KB per image.
Building a Browser-Based Passport Photo Maker with Country Presets
Passport photos have strict government specifications — exact dimensions, specific background colors, and precise head positioning. Here's how to build a tool that handles all of this entirely in the browser.
Image resizing sounds trivial — scale the width, scale the height, done. But there's a surprising amount of detail involved in making it work well across different image sizes and aspect ratios. The Naive Approach (And Why It Fails) js // Don't do this for large images ctx.drawImage(img, 0, 0, targetW, targetH); This works fine for small images.
How to Compress Images in the Browser with Canvas API (No Uploads, No Server)
Every image you upload to a "free" online compressor is sent to a server — often without you knowing what happens to it afterward. For a tool that processes your private photos, that's a terrible design. Here's how to build (or use) an image compressor that runs entirely in the browser using the HTML5 Canvas API. No uploads, no server costs, and unlimited file sizes.
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