WebP

  • Full name: “Web Picture”.

  • Pronounced: “Weppy”.

  • For What: Used for pixel-based images to be seen on a screen. It was specifically designed for the Internet—smaller file size means it loads faster and is easier on the databases.

  • Where to Use: Online—websites, social media—and for applications to opportunities.

  • Good to know! Adobe Photoshop does a wonderful job with WebP Files. Affinity, however, does not.

  • Colour Profile: RGB colour profile.

  • Transparency: Is possible.

  • Animation: Is possible

Examples of Uses:

Logos and
signatures

Any number
of colours

behind
image

Images with transparency

Animation

From the creator, Google:

WebP is a modern image format developed by Google that provides superior compression for images on the web, resulting in smaller file sizes than traditional formats like JPEG and PNG. It supports both lossy and lossless compression, transparency, and animation, making it a versatile format that can replace JPEG, PNG, and GIF. This leads to faster page load times and reduced bandwidth consumption. 

Key features of WebP

  • Superior compression: WebP images are typically 26% smaller than PNGs (lossless) and 25-34% smaller than comparable JPEGs (lossy) at equivalent quality.

  • Lossy and lossless compression: It can compress images in a way that sacrifices quality for smaller size (lossy) or without any loss of data (lossless).

  • Transparency: Supports alpha channel transparency in both lossy and lossless modes, which can significantly reduce file sizes compared to PNGs.

  • Animation: Can create animated images that are much smaller than GIFs while supporting lossy, lossless, and transparency features.

  • Metadata support: Can include metadata like Exif and XMP.

  • Browser support: It is natively supported by all major web browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari. 


Why use WebP?

  • Faster websites: Smaller image files lead to quicker page loading times, improving the user experience and search engine rankings.

  • Reduced bandwidth: Lower bandwidth usage can be especially beneficial for users on mobile devices or with limited data plans.

  • Versatility: Its support for lossy, lossless, transparency, and animation means a single format can often be used to replace multiple legacy formats. 

NOTE FROM SONIA:

I have used JPG, PNG, and GIF for images being used on the Internet since the time when it was learning to walk—yes, I’m a dinosaur who started using computers in the late 80s/early 90s. The WEBP format was born in 2010, but I didn’t really play with WEBP until now, 2025. What can I say? I’ve been busy!!

WhatI have found is that YES, WEBP files ARE significantly smaller. Enough so that I’m going to be using them from now on, especially because images can be slow to load if one is not careful.

Be aware of this…

It’s 2025 as I type this, and even though WEBP has been around so long, it’s still somehow relatively new, which means NOT ALL systems out there can handle this format. One is Squarespace, but only for special functions, if you will. Importing an image into a page is no problem. Using it for a fancy-pants code thing, not so much.

My advice… use it until you can’t. THEN use JPG or PNG.