Digikam image re-compression - is it reliable?

[Amos Shapira]

Hi,

I'm preparing a disk-on-key with family photos to send to my mum and
noticed something a bit unexpected.
Most of the photos were taken with a Canon EOS 300D, maximum resolution and
minimum compression.
Some were taken with Android phone and iPhone 4.
I use Digikam on Debian to manage my photos.
The total space of the original images (including movies, which weren't
touched) was ~7.6Gb.
The total space after re-compression using default parameters (75%, JPEG,
no resizing) - < 1Gb.

I think I saw before that simple re-compression saves a lot of disk space,
but this is about 90% reduction (take into account that this includes
copied untouched .mp4 movie files).
>From eye-balling the images on the computer screen (24", 1920x1280) they
look just fine. They are going to be printed on regular sized photo paper,
not made into bus-stop posters or anything.

Am I missing something? Should I still send the larger images (I think I
can just barely fit them into an old 8Gb disk-on-key) or will the smaller
ones do fine?

It also makes me wonder about my own photo stash - it takes a few dozens of
Gb's now. If I can recompress them without losing noticeable quality
(assume I never intend to display/print them larger than an A4 page) then
this could save me a huge amount of disk (+backups, handling, easier
shipping to relatives on the other side of the world etc).

Thanks,

--Amos
-- 
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<http://www.linkedin.com/in/gliderflyer>
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