To truly understand what makes WebP unique, it helps to first understand all the image file formats and their differences. But to speed things along in this article, we’ll jump straight to WebP’s main selling point, compression. So in this guide, we explain everything you need to know, what it is, how to use it and why you should care. We’ll explain the WebP pros and https://wizardsdev.com/en/news/webp-or-png-to-choose/ cons and then show you how to convert your other image formats. Spatial prediction is used to reduce entropy by exploiting the fact that neighboring pixels are often correlated. In the predictor transform, the current pixel value is predicted from the pixels that are already decoded (in scan-line order), and only the residual value (actual - predicted) is encoded.
Conceptually similar to the animated GIF format which has been in use for decades, APNG is more capable in that it supports a variety of color depths, whereas animated GIF supports only 8-bit indexed color. Additionally, it’s worth considering browser compatibility when adopting next-gen image formats. While major browsers support WebP, AVIF support is still evolving, and some older browsers may not display AVIF images.
Converting your Images to WebP
If you have Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or Opera, all you have to do is double-click the image, and it opens in your default browser for you to view. Choose a destination on your computer where you want to save the image, then click "Save." Visit Mozilla Corporation’s not-for-profit parent, the Mozilla Foundation.Portions of this content are ©1998–2023 by individual mozilla.org contributors. Convert your favorite collection from PNG and JPEG to WebP by downloading the precompiled cwebp conversion tool for Linux, Windows or macOS.
This format suits images that have a lot of pixels, like text-heavy infographics. It also supports transparency, which makes it ideal for web design elements and logos. Unfortunately, PNG is usually larger in image size and doesn’t support animation. Google originally developed WebP as a lossy image format to supersede JPEG, one that was able to produce files smaller than a comparable-quality image file encoded as JPEG. Later updates to the format introduced the option of lossless compression, PNG-like alpha channel transparency, and GIF-like animation—all of which can be used alongside JPEG-style lossy compression.
Lossy WebP with Alpha
AVIF does not support progressive rendering, so files must be fully downloaded before they can be displayed. This often has little impact on real-world user experience because AVIF files are much smaller than the equivalent JPEG or PNG files, and hence can be downloaded and displayed much faster. For larger file size the impact can become significant, and you should consider using a format that supports progressive rendering. APNG is ideal for basic animations that do not need to synchronize to other activities or to a sound track, such as progress indicators, activity throbbers, and other animated sequences. For example, APNG is one of the formats supported when creating animated stickers for Apple's iMessage application (and the Messages application on iOS). They're also commonly used for the animated portions of web browsers' user interfaces.
After you install it, you’ll be able to use the Save As option (not Save For Web!) and select either WebP or WebP Lossless from the format dropdown. On a doddering mobile connection, you can even see these images unfurl before you like a descending window shade. This gallery page is best viewed with a browser that supports WebP, such as Google Chrome, Opera and others. The multipart/byteranges MIME type is used to send partial responses to the browser. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is responsible for all official MIME types, and you can find the most up-to-date and complete list at their Media Types page. There’s plenty to choose from, and in fact most succeed at the basic task of converting a file to WebP.
TIFF (Tagged Image File Format)
A new loop iteration is then begun, or the canvas is left in its final state if all iterations have been completed. At the beginning of each loop iteration, the canvas is filled using the background color from the 'ANIM' Chunk or an application-defined color. A RIFF chunk (described in the RIFF File Format section) whose FourCC is different from any of the chunks described in this document, is considered an unknown chunk. There SHOULD be at most one chunk of each type ('EXIF' and 'XMP ').
In truth, both PNG and JPEG also do this sort of prediction to some degree. The results provided by each prediction mode are then compared to the real image data, and the closest predictive match is selected. When it comes to other software, not all of them support the WebP format. Some image viewers and image editing tools can’t open WebP files.
Adobe Photoshop
AVIF is supported in Chrome, Opera, Safari and Firefox (Firefox supports still images but not animations), but not on Edge or IE. As support is not yet comprehensive (and has little historical depth) you should provide a fallback in WebP, JPEG or PNG format using the element (or some other approach). The flagship feature of WebP is it requires less storage space than some competing technologies. Switching an image from JPEG to WebP can reduce its storage footprint by more than 30%, which makes websites that use the format load faster. Additionally, the technology supports both static images and animations, which typically have to be stored in separate formats.
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- Google acquired On2 Technologies on February 19, 2010, then released WebP in September of the same year.
- However, keep in mind that you can only use this API if you’re using WordPress.com or your self-hosted WordPress site is connected to Jetpack.
- Predictive coding uses the values in neighboring blocks of pixels to predict the values in a block, and then encodes only the difference.
- Saving only the data that changes between each block reduces storage space compared to PNG and JPEG formats.
Each browser performs MIME sniffing differently and under different circumstances. (For example, Safari will look at the file extension in the URL if the sent MIME type is unsuitable.) There are security concerns as some MIME types represent executable content. Servers can prevent MIME sniffing by sending the X-Content-Type-Options header. As a multipart document format, it consists of different parts, delimited by a boundary (a string starting with a double dash --). Each part is its own entity with its own HTTP headers, Content-Disposition, and Content-Type for file uploading fields. Per the IANA Media Types registry, RFC 9239, and the HTML specification, JavaScript content should always be served using the MIME type text/javascript.
What color spaces does the WebP format support?
Here are examples of how to do that for Webpack, Gulp, and Grunt. Length indicates how many pixels in scan-line order are to be copied. Distance code is a number indicating the position of a previously seen pixel, from which the pixels are to be copied.
Not too bad, especially when you consider that the visual quality between the two is comparable. Overall, the resulting WebP files provided a global saving of 32% compared to the JPEG file sizes. And if you're not inclined toward the command line, Squoosh will serve us just as well for encoding WebP. It gives us the option of side-by-side comparisons between different encodings, settings, quality levels, and differences in file size from JPEG encoding. The low-frequency information at the top left of the picture—the blurry green backdrop of leaves—looks terrible.
