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WebP is so great except it's not (2021)

eng.aurelienpierre.com

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Re: WebP is so great except it's not (2021)

#221

Post by djha-skin »

bzzzt wrote: post #200
djha-skin wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I caught it on my Android 12 without full screening. He's talking about the background, not the foreground. The backgrounds color noticeably changes from shot to shot around edges.

I have to zoom in to really notice that. But both the jpg and webp have distortion - webp slightly more. Both have difficulty with edges.

I think we're talking about two different things. You're not noticing the forest for the trees. I'm talking about big huge macro effects that become more apparent when you zoom out, not less.

There is a difference in the gradients of color. One hasn't the guy looking backlit and one doesn't.

Re: WebP is so great except it's not (2021)

#222

Post by throwup238 »

andybak wrote: post #212
TacticalCoder wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At 50 y/o my eyesight began to fail and yet the differences in the pictures are freaking obvious. As in: it's impossible to not see how huge the differences are. And many people commented the same. These simply aren't small differences. People who cannot see the differences or who only see them after taking a close look should realize something: there are many people for whom the differences are going to be immediate…

> People who cannot see the differences or who only see them after taking a close look should realize something: there are many people for whom the differences are going to be immediately obvious. That's one possible conclusion. Another is that some people are overstating how obvious it is. I don't mean this as an insult - there's plenty of cases where people's stated perceptions and preferences disappear when tested…

It's definitely an objective phenomenon but there's two factors at play: first is the monitor quality. I have two monitors of the same model number but made in different years with obviously different panels (color reproduction is all over the place between them), and the banding is obvious in one monitor but not the other. I can drag the window between screens and it disappears. On my iPhone, it's very obvious.

Second is how much each person's brain interpolates. I got used to those visual artifacts on the web in the early 90s so my brain started doing its own interpolation. It took reading the entire article and flipping tabs back and forth to compare images before I noticed the difference. Now I can't unsee it in other images that I recently converted to webp for a project.

Re: WebP is so great except it's not (2021)

#223

Post by LeoNatan25 »

_fat_santa wrote: post #216
V__ wrote: post #4

I opened the first two pictures in separate tabs and switched quickly between them. There is zero difference. Tried it on two different monitors, Chrome and Firefox. Same with the pictures of the guy at the end. EDIT: The last comparison is webp twice, he linked it wrong. Here is the jpg one, still no difference: https://eng.aurelienpierre.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/20...

Lots of replies here saying either: "I can't see the difference" or "Wow the difference is stark". My takeaway as a non-photographer is: "different tools for different uses". If you're posting photography where image quality matters then use JPEG or another format that you think displays the image best. If you're writing a blog post with screenshots or other images where minute quality doesn't matter that much then u…

No, in both cases, use something that is better than JPEG and Webp: JPEG XL.

Re: WebP is so great except it's not (2021)

#224

Post by palata »

bawolff wrote: post #11

I dont get it. The author seems to care highly about image quality, but also wants to squeeze out as many bytes as possible? Bandwidth is cheap. If we are talking about photography as art, why would you be trying to scrap a few kb off in the first place?

It's more nuanced than that: the author compares two lossy compressions and gives their opinion about which one is better.

It is not honest to say "use my compression algorithm, it is better" and then, when people point out that it is actually worse, to say "well if you care about quality, you should not compress anyway". It doesn't make the algorithm any better.

Re: WebP is so great except it's not (2021)

#225

Post by tzs »

catach wrote: post #12
laserbeam wrote: post #6

I know this is not constructive and I'm sorry, but I just can't read the text with those st and ct ligatures. It makes me feel like the author is trolling with them and I shouldn't take the text seriously. I know that's an exaggeration but that's what the design makes me feel.

Luckily Reader Mode or disabling CSS takes care of the oddity.

I wonder if that would still work if the ligature were done in Unicode instead of CSS?

Re: WebP is so great except it's not (2021)

#226

Post by _fat_santa »

LeoNatan25 wrote: post #223
_fat_santa wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of replies here saying either: "I can't see the difference" or "Wow the difference is stark". My takeaway as a non-photographer is: "different tools for different uses". If you're posting photography where image quality matters then use JPEG or another format that you think displays the image best. If you're writing a blog post with screenshots or other images where minute quality doesn't matter that much then u…

No, in both cases, use something that is better than JPEG and Webp: JPEG XL.

JPEG XL is great except is has virtually no browser support[1]

[1]: https://caniuse.com/jpegxl

Re: WebP is so great except it's not (2021)

#227

Post by palata »

I find it interesting how many comments here (presumably from "tech guys") confirm what the author wrote:

> So there is a real issue with the design priorities of image algos from tech guys who clearly lack historical and artistic background, and don’t talk to artists, who anyway have largely decided that they were above science, maths and other menial materialistic concerns.

I am a tech guy, and when a photographer tells me that an image looks worse than another one, if I don't see it, my first reaction is more "can you try to explain to me why it is worse?" and less "I don't see a difference, so you must be wrong".

I would be slightly offended if an artist told me that there was nothing wrong with `if (vAluE < 3 ) {return true; } else {{ return false;}}` just because they cannot see the problem.

Re: WebP is so great except it's not (2021)

#228

Post by hot_gril »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #213
pembrook wrote: post #124

I've noticed the same issue with WebP and have gone back to JPG/PNG for most things (jpg for photos, png for UI-type images) I think the real problem is, like many of the commenters here, most people can't tell the difference because desktop monitors have been stuck in a deadzone of zero innovation for the last 10 years. I'm sure half the folks here are viewing his example images on a 2012-era HD 1920x1080 LCD, which…

> I've noticed the same issue with WebP and have gone back to JPG/PNG for most things (jpg for photos, png for UI-type images) Wait... I agree for JPG but if you use lossless WEBP instead of PNG, isn't it simply the same pixels, just with a file about 30% smaller than the corresponding PNG file? (and 15% smaller compared to already heavily optimized PNG files like when using zopfli/optipng/etc.). Isn't the "lossless"…

Yeah but I just don't fw webp and other weird formats. JPEG and PNG are tried and true, also it's nice how the extension indicates lossiness.

On the technical side, webp support still isn't like png. Tried dragging a webp into Google Slides just now, got "unsupported image type," which is ironic. I'll try again in like 10 years.

Re: WebP is so great except it's not (2021)

#229

Post by hot_gril »

MindSpunk wrote: post #153
pembrook wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's a weird thing to say unless the pixel density is your one and only measure. Is it though? We now have OLED TVs and OLED smartphones. Where's our OLED PC monitors? On every measure, if you care about colors/contrast/black+white levels/resolution/density, the average computer monitor has fallen far behind. You can't even buy a smartphone that has a panel half as bad as most PC monitors on the market. And, at l…

> Where's our OLED PC monitors? https://computers.scorptec.com.au/computer/Oled-Monitor They've been around for years. PC monitors have been improving constantly with high refresh rates, local dimming HDR + 10 bit color, adaptive sync, OLED and more.

Only on the unusual high-end gaming monitors.

Re: WebP is so great except it's not (2021)

#230

Post by gorlilla »

vinaypai wrote: post #9
lelag wrote: post #2

I clearly have "non-educated eyes" as I can't see any meaningful differences personally.

Same here. Especially considering the ones supposedly "look like shit". The whole thing reads like a no-so-subtle brag about how his mighty photographer's eye can spot details that mere mortals can't.

It's there. It's very noticeable once pointed out. It drastically distorts the images' 'softness' because of the harsh steps through the gradients. It does not appear as the artist intended for it to, which is the biggest issue.
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