<p>For all practical purposes, no.  The performance hit for images transforms happens the first time the transform is requested and generated.  After that, the images are served as a normal file that your web server can serve up as quickly as any other file.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-15T03:37:26.593Z
It's a Pixel & Tonic [answer duel](http://youtu.be/AphxyjrH4SE)!
Lindsey D
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-15T03:39:22.817Z
Just so we're clear here... I'm James T. Kirk.
Brad Bell
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-15T03:40:20.993Z
What happens if that image got deleted?
carlcs
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-15T03:42:55.517Z
In what context?  The transformed image?  The source image?
Brad Bell
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-15T03:49:44.717Z
The transformed image is missing, does this trigger another transform? If yes, is there any script that initializes this and doesn't that take performance?
carlcs
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-15T04:06:39.617Z
So I just request them myself and handle it.
cmcjane
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-15T03:21:50.713Z
2014-06-15T03:33:13.807Z
2014-06-15T03:33:13.807Z
Brad Bell
<p>Nope. Once a transform has been generated once, Craft remembers that, and saves it right in your asset source. Future page loads will get a direct URL to that generated image, so it gets loaded via your webserver (or S3, etc.) directly. No PHP involved.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-15T03:46:22.380Z
Then you’ll start getting 404s on that image, since Craft won’t be aware that the file doesn’t exist anymore. You can always clear your craft_assettransformindex table though, which is where Craft stores its records of all generated transforms.
Brandon Kelly
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-15T03:52:48.417Z
What happens if that image got deleted?
carlcs
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-15T03:54:27.643Z
Sorry I deleted that comment because I thought Brad made the race.. But then your very satisfying answer popped up :)
carlcs
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-16T12:46:52.467Z
I just thought of something- what if Google PageSpeed has grabbed the images after the first time and is now serving them?
cmcjane
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-15T03:21:34.500Z
2014-06-15T03:21:34.500Z
Brandon Kelly
<p>If I have a site that will eventually have thousands of product images on it, would using image transforms slow things down?  </p>

<image-transforms><performance>
Can image transforms decrease performance?
# Can image transforms decrease performance?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-06-15)

If I have a site that will eventually have thousands of product images on it, would using image transforms slow things down?

**Tags:** image-transforms, performance

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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_4 on 2014-06-15. Score: 9 | Accepted answer

Nope. Once a transform has been generated once, Craft remembers that, and saves it right in your asset source. Future page loads will get a direct URL to that generated image, so it gets loaded via your webserver (or S3, etc.) directly. No PHP involved.

> **Comments:**
> **username_4**: Then you’ll start getting 404s on that image, since Craft won’t be aware that the file doesn’t exist anymore. You can always clear your craft_assettransformindex table though, which is where Craft stores its records of all generated transforms.  
> **username_3**: What happens if that image got deleted?  
> **username_3**: Sorry I deleted that comment because I thought Brad made the race.. But then your very satisfying answer popped up :)  
> **username_0**: I just thought of something- what if Google PageSpeed has grabbed the images after the first time and is now serving them?  

---

### Answer by username_1 on 2014-06-15. Score: 8

For all practical purposes, no. The performance hit for images transforms happens the first time the transform is requested and generated. After that, the images are served as a normal file that your web server can serve up as quickly as any other file.

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: It's a Pixel & Tonic [answer duel](http://youtu.be/AphxyjrH4SE)!  
> **username_1**: Just so we're clear here... I'm James T. Kirk.  
> **username_3**: What happens if that image got deleted?  
> **username_1**: In what context?  The transformed image?  The source image?  
> **username_3**: The transformed image is missing, does this trigger another transform? If yes, is there any script that initializes this and doesn't that take performance?  
> **username_0**: So I just request them myself and handle it.  

---

