To hit the 1MB mark, Cloudinary uses perceptual optimization techniques that are visually lossless and content-aware. At typical viewing sizes, changes in quality are nearly invisible since essential details like textures, edges, and definition are preserved while redundant data is removed. Truly lossless output may exceed 1MB, so if you need exact fidelity, formats like PNG or lossless AVIF/WebP are recommended, though file sizes may be larger. For most marketing visuals and photography, the perceptual method creates lighter files with virtually no visual difference. If compression artifacts appear, slightly increase quality or reduce dimensions to stay around 1MB while maintaining clarity.