Why WebP is lighter than JPG
WebP's lossy mode uses newer compression techniques than JPG, a format that dates back to the early 1990s. For photographs, a WebP is often 25–35% smaller than a JPG at similar visual quality. On a page with many images, that difference adds up and can make loading noticeably faster, particularly on mobile connections.
There is a catch worth understanding. Your JPG has already been through lossy compression, and WebP output is lossy too, so this conversion compresses the image a second time. The WebP cannot contain more detail than the JPG it came from, and at low quality settings the two rounds of compression can compound. Start from the highest-quality JPG you have, ideally the original export from your camera or editor, rather than a copy that has already been shrunk for the web.
Picking a WebP quality for photos
The default of 85 is a balanced starting point for most photographs. As a rough guide:
- 85 to 92 for hero images, product photos and anything where fine texture such as fabric, hair or foliage matters;
- 75 to 85 for typical article and gallery images;
- 65 to 75 for small thumbnails, where artefacts are hard to see at display size.
Do not assume the numbers line up with JPG. A WebP at 85 and a JPG at 85 come from different encoders and will not look identical, so judge the result by eye on one representative image before converting the rest.
Dimensions matter as much as quality. A 6,000-pixel-wide photo straight from a camera is far larger than any page displays it. Use Settings → Size to fit images within the widest size your layout shows; the aspect ratio is kept and photos are never enlarged.
JPG vs WebP for photographs
| Criterion | JPG | WebP |
|---|---|---|
| Compression | Lossy | Lossy or lossless (this converter creates lossy WebP) |
| Typical size of a photo | Baseline | Often 25–35% smaller at similar visual quality |
| Transparency | Not supported | Supported |
| Animation | Not supported | Supported |
| Web browsers | All | All current major browsers |
| Other software | Accepted almost everywhere | Some older apps, print services and email clients reject it |
| Best for | Sharing, printing, compatibility | Publishing images on websites and in apps |
When a JPG should stay a JPG
- It is leaving the web. Print services, email recipients and older office software may not accept WebP, so keep a JPG for those uses.
- It is already heavily compressed. A small, low-quality JPG has little left to save, and another lossy pass only adds artefacts.
- It is your archive copy. Keep the original JPGs and treat the WebP files as the versions you publish.
Going the other way is just as easy: if someone sends you WebP images that your software will not open, use WebP to JPG.
Putting WebP photos on your site
Most of the work after converting happens in your website itself. A few habits make the switch smooth:
- Keep settings consistent. Using the same quality and maximum width for every image in a gallery keeps them looking uniform side by side.
- Update every reference. The converted files use the
.webpextension, so links, image tags and theme settings that point to the old.jpgnames need changing. - Check your platform first. Many current content management systems accept WebP uploads, but some older ones and some plugins do not.
Before you publish
EXIF metadata is not copied into the WebP, so GPS coordinates and camera details are not published along with your photos. Copyright and caption fields are dropped as well, so credit photographers in your page text where needed. Orientation is applied to the pixels, which means photos appear upright without relying on tags.
Colours are converted to sRGB, the colour space browsers assume for untagged images. Photos shot in Display P3 on recent phones may look slightly less vivid afterwards, which is worth a quick check for colour-critical product shots.
You can convert up to 10 photos per batch. They are processed one at a time, and the ZIP download stores them without compressing them again, so the files in the archive are exactly the WebPs you created.