Start by looking at the subject generally:
Wikipedia[
^] is always a good start.
The topic page has a fair number of links to more detailed info, which should give you an idea what you are getting yourself into!
Then from that lot, find something that interests you particularly, and then start Googling to find more details, until you have a project idea that can actually be implemented.
We can't say "do this" since (as you say) "lossy compression" is a very broad term!
Time to start reading... :laugh: