Have you tried downloading an image, and it’s in webp format instead of more usable formats like JPEG or PNG? You’re certainly not alone.
Webmasters are increasingly embracing Google’s new WEBP image format that offers more compression, leading to less server load to load resources, unlike legacy JPEG and PNG image formats.
What is Google’s WEBP image format?
The webP format is a modern image format in the industry put forth by Google. The WebP image format’s significant advantage is it provides superior lossless and lossy compression for images on the web. The image format enables webmasters and web developers to include smaller yet richer images to improve their website’s speed.
Read further: Google’s WebP Image format Explained
So to what extent does the new webP image format compress images relative to JPEG and PNG? According to Google WebP, lossless images are 26% smaller than PNGs. Compared to JPEG, WebP lossy images are 25-34% smaller at equivalent SSIM quality index.
The format also supports transparency which is a plus.
With these advantages, it’s clear why some websites are switching to serve their images as webP files.
See also: How to Make any Image a Circle Easily without Photoshop
How to save WebP Images as JPEG or PNG
There are a variety of ways that can help you save webP images as JPEGs or PNGs. These include:
- Switching to a different browser
- Using Windows 10 built-in MS Paint app
- Using a browser extension
- Using Online Conversion Tools
Let’s take a deep dive into the methods.
1. Switching to a different browser
Browsers are complicated tools. A myriad of features are unanimously supported, but not everything is standard across the board. As such, it’s no surprise that some browsers do not support webP image format, for example, Internet Explorer and Apple’s Safari.
Unfortunately, Internet Explorer was laid to rest after a 17-year run, and the company is slowly ditching support. But if you’re on a mac, do the following:
Step 1. Open Safari
Step 2. Go to the website with the WebP image you want to download
Step 3. Right-click and select save the file.
By default, the image available should be in JPEG or PNG format. This is because webmasters provide alternative solutions to ensure the website can run without issues across browsers.
2. Using Microsoft MS Paint app
Microsoft’s paint app, shipped in Windows by default, can help you convert webp image files into JPEG or PNG.
To convert WebP images to JPEG or PNG using MS Paint, do the following:
Step 1. Right-click on an image you want to save
Step 2. Select “Save Image As”
Step 3. Select where you want the image to be stored
Step 4. Hit “Save”
Your system will begin downloading the image.
Step 5. Once done, navigate to where the image is saved
Step 6. Right-click on the image and select “Open with,” and tap on “Paint.”
Step 7. In Paint, tap File > Save As and select the format you wish to save the image in. There are lots of different options available, select JPEG or PNG.
Step 8. Click Save. Click “Ok” if you’re shown a dialog box warning the image will lose transparency as a result.
Step 9. Navigate to where you saved the image, and there’s your JPEG or PNG!
3. Using a browser extension
If the two other methods seem tedious, this should be a more effortless and less troubling alternative. We’ll use a simple browser extension to save WebP images directly from the web. There are lots of browser extensions designated for this specific purpose. In this guide, we’ll use the most popular of all – Save image as Type.
Step 1. Go to Save image as Type page on Chrome Web Store
Step 2. Tap the big “Add to Chrome” button
Step 3. Select “Add extension” from the pop-up dialog box
Step 4. Once the extension is downloaded, you’ll be presented with an additional “Save Image As” option in the pop-up menu when you right-click on an image.
Select Save Image As > then choose the file format you want the image to be saved in.
If Save Image As Type is not available in your specific browser, search the term to find other alternatives.
4. Using Online Conversion Tools
There also lots of online conversion tools to help you convert your webp images to JPEG or PNG. Using an online conversion tool, all you have to do is download the webp image, upload it on the tool and choose the format the image should be converted into.
Everything is handled in the background on your behalf.
We recommend Zamzar, which has been around for a while and probably isn’t going anywhere soon.
Here’s how to convert webp images to JPEG or PNG using Zamzar.
Step 1. Go to https://www.zamzar.com/
Step 2. Click “Add files” and select your webp image from your PC, then tap “Open.”
Step 3. Select “Convert To” and choose one of the image formats available
Step 4. Click “Convert Now”
Step 5. The file will be uploaded and converted. Once the process is finished, the website will present a Download button. Select the download button to save the image on your local storage.
Read Next:
WebP has such a nuance – not all browsers support it. For example, iOS Safari, regular Safari, IE – do not support WebP. https://caniuse.com/#feat=webp Therefore, you must always store at least two versions of each image. Webp (for WebP-enabled browsers) and original image. And give the right version depending on the browser. And the original image must also be optimized/compressed – so that even for browsers without WebP support, images will be optimized (lighter in weight) – this is the third! version of the file. At the optipic service, I recently noticed a new functionality in which all of this is already in the box. https://optipic.io/en/cdn/ You can even connect everything so that the urls of the images do not change (they remain exactly the same and look like internal URLs on my site). But in fact, they are loaded through their system with automatic compression, conversion to webp, and recognition of webp support. It turns out that everything is simple and beautiful, and inexpensive))
Thanks, Alex. Yeah, WebP is a nuance. Of course, web developers need to offer image options for both non-webP and WebP browsers to ensure wide support.