WebP is the new image format that is being used these days widely and it incorporates both lossless and lossy image compression in the web. This is a very good alternative to JPEG, PNG images. We can create the very small, clear, high definition richer images which will help you make your web work faster with help of WebP, webmasters and web developers.  It is presently being developed by Google, it bought the technology from the On2 Technologies. It is a subordinate of VP8 video format, while it is a similar task to that of WebM multimedia container format. The WebP software is being released under the BSD license.

The lossless images in WebP are 26% smaller in the size with compared to the PNG images. However, the WebP lossy images are 25%-34% smaller with compared with the JPEG images with having the similar SSIM image quality. WebP is supporting both Lossless and translucent images giving a tough competition and a better option than PNG images. However, JPEG is a lossy type but in the WebP, the difference is the size of the image in WebP the size of the size is less than that of JPEG but the image quality is same and great.

How does WebP works?

In VP8 video codec use the method to compress all the mainframes of the images in a video similarly lossy WebP compression use the predictive coding to encode the images. The predictive coding uses the values that are present in the adjacent block pixels to forecast the values present in this block. Later just the difference between both of them is encoded.

Source: Google Developers

While moving towards the lossless WebP compression use the already checked fragments of the image so that it can exactly rebuild the brand new pixels. However, if no ideal match is being found it has the full rights and can use the local palette.

The WebP file contains a container based on the Riff and the file in it consists of VP8 and VP8L data of the image. For providing the specification in the WebP the reference implementation is the standalone library and it is available in the git respiratory or in the tarball.

How to convert images into WebP?

The easiest way to know what is the actual taste of WebP is from then it is best to download the WebP Photoshop Plugin if you are well versed with the PhotoShop and its working. Then it is best to opt for this version. First, you have to install it and you will get an option “Save As” if you select it you will get the WebP or WebP Lossless format in the drop-down.  However, there is a major difference in JPEG and PNG images because the JPEG images are lossy images while PNG images are the lossless images. On the contrast, you can use WebP lossy for converting the JPEG images and also you can use the WebP lossless for converting the PNG images. This means WebP is doing the dual work you can convert the normal images to lossy images and lossless images which prior we had to do using JPEG for lossy and PNG for lossless.

While you are saving the images using the WebP lossless format in the Photoshop plugin you will not receive any prompts as it takes cares of everything by itself. If you want to get the old format of the images the WebP lossless images then you will get a prompt for sure which is shown below.

WebP in Photoshop

Source: WebP Photoshop

You get more option and settings in the WebP dialog which helps in getting the flexibility to configure the output. You can easily adjust the image quality from 0-100 a bit similar to JPEG. One can even set the strength at which the profile can be filtered to get the lower sizes of the images however you have to compromise somewhat in the visual quality. You can also see the normal settings like filtering the noise and sharpness.

These are some of the things which I personally feel are good enough with addition you get two formats just in one. So, my choice is to opt for WebP in place of JPEG and PNG because both the task can be done in a single format which occupies less size and gives a similar result as they both give.  This is one of the major marketing trends going on the digital media you can download this for every medium Linux and for Microsoft & Mac OS from here.

You can download it easily even you search the keyword WebP in the browser and you can get all the information about it. However, it even contains some of the tools which are mentioned below:

  • cwebp- Encoder tool for WebP
  • dwebp- Decoder tool for WebP
  • vwebp- File Viewer in WebP
  • webmux- Muxing tool in WebP
  • gif2webp- This is the tool in WebP that converts the Gif images.

You can download here the Framework of WebP for the iOS and you will find more details about it in Archive README.

What are the devices that WebP supports?

Still now WebP only supports some devices, not for every device. At present, it is supporting just the Chrome, Opera and Android all those things that are being developed by Google. It will take some time so that it gets updated in every type of browsers available. So, it is better to have patience and wait for the further updates because as Google has promised this will soon be updated and will support every type of browser available.

Below is the chart where you can verify about the browsers which support WebP and which doesn’t:

Browser supporting WebP

Techniques involved

Google always tries to make good user experience and want that the users should get the best out of it. That is when he has come up with this WebP concept well off course it bought from other company On2 Experience, however, Google has made every effort to make it easy and fast for the users. The only way to make this happen is by reducing the size of the images. Images usually comprise 60%- 65% of the bytes on most of the web pages and the page sizes and is said to be the main factor in providing the total time. The page size is very crucial for the mobile phones because here the small images will have both bandwidth and battery life.

WebP is invented by Google so that it supports the Opera, Chrome, and Android which is optimized so that in mobiles and tablets we can get the smaller size and clear images. As the image size in WebP is 30% smaller than the JPEG and PNG images whereas maintaining the same quality of the images. Inclusive to all these things, the WebP images have another feature that is the image parity with other formats also.

It supports the below given formats and features:

  • Lossy Compression: VP8 main frame encoding upon this the Lossy compression is based or supported on. VP8 is a successor of VP7 and VP6 all these three things are created by only one company that is On2 technologies.
  • Lossless compression: Later, this version is developed by the WebP team to make it easy and simple for the people.
  • Animation: It supports all the animated and real colors of the images and embeds them similarly for the user’s images.
  • Color Profile: It has embedded ICC profile inside it.
  • Transparency: For all the graphical images the 8-bit alpha channel is being used. The Alpha channel can be simply used alongside the lossy RGB, a unique feature that you can never find it in any other format of the images.
  • Metadata: It is used mainly by the cameras whereas it may contain the EXIF and XMP metadata files.

Due to the presence of so many all these features which bring out the best of the images and the best compressed images WebP is the best replacement for all the other images formats like the JPEG, PNG or GIF. With the better features like the transparency, it includes all the new image optimization opportunities.

In total, we can say that it is the best image format introduced providing the best results in a tiny package. It is the best format that should be used while compared with all other.

Varshita Muddana

Varshita works as Content Writer at Soft Script Solutions Pvt. Ltd. She writes about e-commerce, market trends, social media trends, and SEO. Her interests outside work are Exploring, Travelling, and Reading