Which term describes shrinking by removing details that degrade quality?

• A. Packet
• B. Data compression
• C. Lossy compression
• D. Colour depth

Answer: (C)

Shrinking file size by discarding data that isn’t essential for perception is lossy compression. It removes details to reduce size, and because some information is permanently dropped, the recovered file isn’t exactly the same as the original—quality can drop if you compress more. That’s why JPEG images and MP3 audio are classic examples: they achieve much smaller files by throwing away parts of the data that listeners or viewers are unlikely to notice.

In contrast, data compression as a whole covers both lossy and lossless methods, the latter reducing size without losing any information, so no perceptible quality change. Colour depth is about how many bits represent each color, which affects quality and size but isn’t the process of discarding data to shrink a file.