How to Perserve EXIF

For those photographers out there who may be interested in this plugin bear in mind that by default your EXIF data will be stripped on optimization. There is no each way to change this via the UI. You can change it by modifying the plugin. Here’s how.

1. Navigate to Plugins > Plugins Editor
2. In the top right select reSmush.it from the Select plugin to edit list
3. In Plugin files expand classes and select resmushit.class.php
4. Scroll to line 71 which reads $arg['qlty'] = self::getPictureQualitySetting();
5. Add a new line (72) with the following $arg['exif'] = true;
6. Click Update File

Keep in mind this will dramatically decrease the effectiveness of this plugin. With EXIF preserved I saw maybe 5-6% saved. With EXIF removal savings spiked to 50-60%. Of course YMMV.

Personally for me I’d rather keep the EXIF data if the savings are going to be so small.