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Is WebP really better than JPEG?

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Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#111

Post by pornel »

innocenat wrote: post #51
NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #22

Does anyone know how these compare with the HEIC format that it seems my iPhone now uses by default? Is that non-mainstream, or otherwise not fit for comparison?

I haven't follow the trend much nor seen a recent comparison, so take this with a grain of salt. WebP is based on VP8, which was considered to be competitor to H.264 (AVC). HEIC is based on H.265 (HEVC), which competes with VP9 and AV1. So I'd assume WebP is one generation behind HEIC. WebP was introduced 5 years before HEIC though.

Correct. WebP is 10 years old, based on the VP8 codec that is about 14 years old, which lost in the market to H.264 that is 17 years old. In video streaming VP8 has been completely replaced by VP9 years ago, and VP9 was going to be replaced by VP10 which became part of AV1.

So WebP is hardly new, and a couple of generations behind. Now the next hotness is AVIF (or maybe JPEG XL), so ironically, WebP is becoming usable and obsolete at the same time.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#112

Post by JimDabell »

gruturo wrote: post #86

Every time I run an image comparison, the webp version looks worse and yet Google insists it's the same quality. It's baffling. Even if the above were just an individual... bafflement? and not an actual issue, the size savings really don't seem worth the compatibility hassle, the extra manpower/workflow complexity to support 2 formats, the additional storage (and caching) caused by this duplication. And the above is…

You can argue the toss over quality, but JPEG can't do transparency while WebP can. So if you need transparency, you need to compare the size savings to PNG, not JPEG. WebP is the clear winner there.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#113

Post by als0 »

zmix wrote: post #66

I wonder, why nobody mentioned Patrice Bellard's BPG[1]. It is based on HEVC and can be supported in any browser via a Javascript. From his website: BPG (Better Portable Graphics) is a new image format. Its purpose is to replace the JPEG image format when quality or file size is an issue. Its main advantages are: * High compression ratio. Files are much smaller than JPEG for similar quality. * Supported by most Web b…

> I wonder, why nobody mentioned Patrice Bellard's BPG[1].

Isn't it Fabrice Bellard?

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#114

Post by tedunangst »

gruturo wrote: post #86

Every time I run an image comparison, the webp version looks worse and yet Google insists it's the same quality. It's baffling. Even if the above were just an individual... bafflement? and not an actual issue, the size savings really don't seem worth the compatibility hassle, the extra manpower/workflow complexity to support 2 formats, the additional storage (and caching) caused by this duplication. And the above is…

And then there's times I want to save an image, and can't convince the web site to give me a jpeg, so I have to convert it again.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#115

Post by fouc »

oauea wrote: post #14
Eric_WVGG wrote: post #12

I just relaunched a website that makes extensive use of photographic collages that necessitate alpha backgrounds. They were previously shipping "retina-grade", multi-megabyte images all over, a typical page load could easily reach 25mb. I managed to refit it with ` ` tags using WEBP as well as JP2. The latter was a great deal of trouble, it appears that "the community" (notably Gatsby and Contentful) are very happy t…

Safari Mobile is a broken mess not worth supporting.

If Safari was your main browser during your web development you wouldn't have any issues would you?

Realistically people should be using either Safari or Firefox during their development. Then check for chrome compatibility after.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#116

Post by sigio »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #104
mikece wrote: post #101

An implicit assumption is that "smaller file size is better" and if this discussion were about audio would probably be mp3 vs ogg vorbis... but flac is the BEST to em because I want all of the audio data in the best lossless compression scheme. As a photographer, I would like to have ALL of my image data in a losslessly compressed format as well. What is the FLAC equivalent in the photo/image space?

TIFF, I believe? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIFF

There are lossless versions of PNG, BPF and there is also a lossless JPEG enhancement.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#117

Post by moring »

JimDabell wrote: post #112
gruturo wrote: post #86

Every time I run an image comparison, the webp version looks worse and yet Google insists it's the same quality. It's baffling. Even if the above were just an individual... bafflement? and not an actual issue, the size savings really don't seem worth the compatibility hassle, the extra manpower/workflow complexity to support 2 formats, the additional storage (and caching) caused by this duplication. And the above is…

You can argue the toss over quality, but JPEG can't do transparency while WebP can. So if you need transparency, you need to compare the size savings to PNG, not JPEG. WebP is the clear winner there.

If transparency was the main issue, adding transparency to JPEG sounds easier than coming up with a completely new encoding, especially a lossy one.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#118

Post by mceachen »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #104
mikece wrote: post #101

An implicit assumption is that "smaller file size is better" and if this discussion were about audio would probably be mp3 vs ogg vorbis... but flac is the BEST to em because I want all of the audio data in the best lossless compression scheme. As a photographer, I would like to have ALL of my image data in a losslessly compressed format as well. What is the FLAC equivalent in the photo/image space?

TIFF, I believe? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIFF

TIFF is just a image container. I'd make sure when you save as TIFF, you specify a bit depth equal to your source image, and a format that isn't lossy (like standard JPEG).

If you've got a standard sRGB 8-bit-per-channel image, though, the loss from JPEG at q95 or q100 is negligible, and means your image still enjoys wide app compatibility.

If it's something else (like a raw format from a DSLR), the best you can do is retain the original file.

Also: don't forget file metadata! I inadvertantly deleted all EXIF headers from a number of my original images many years ago because I used jpegtran (without the -copy option!) to losslessly rotate images. I ended up adding a bunch of heuristics in PhotoStructure to automatically infer missing metadata to repair this mistake.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#119

Post by mceachen »

sigio wrote: post #116
NikolaNovak wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TIFF, I believe? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIFF

There are lossless versions of PNG, BPF and there is also a lossless JPEG enhancement.

PNG is always a lossless format. You can only control the level of compression.

There are tools that let you re-encode a PNG after applying a lossy filter, but the PNG still encodes it losslessly.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#120

Post by anaisbetts »

If you're writing an Electron app, using WebP/WebM is a Free space optimization, especially in lossless mode for GIFs or sprite maps. You can also make really beautiful, 60FPS animations with WebM that are as easy to use as GIF
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