Large graphics slow down your web pages, resulting in a less-than-ideal user experience. Image optimization is the process of reducing the file size of photos using a plugin or script, which in turn reduces the page load time.
One of the easiest ways to optimize images without losing on quality is converting them to webp .
WebP is a recent image format that offers greater lossless and lossy compression for web-based image compression. Web developers can use WebP to create smaller, richer graphics that speed up the web.
When compared to PNGs, WebP lossless images are 26% less in size. Lossy WebP images are 25-34 percent smaller than comparable JPEG images with the same quality level.
Now we know why we want to convert images to webp , lets see how to do it .
Using Online Converters .
In the past i used to convert images to webp using online converters like : cloud convert . The problem with online converters is they are very slow and there are images size limits .
Using CLI WEBP Converter .
Well good for us there is a cli webp converter called cwebp ( by google ) . That can help us convert images to webp easily ..
If you are on debian you can easily install it like :
sudo apt-get install webp
Detailed installation guide can be found here.
Converting images with cwebp is pretty simple :
cwebp -q 80 image.png -o image.webp
arg -q is the quality of compression (0-100 , default is 75) . image.png is the input file and arg -o specifies the output file .
Detailed docs can be found here.
Resources :