WebP started as an experiment to create a better format for image files. Google’s format has recently added a lot of features: animation, ICC profile, XMP metadata, transparency and more. “Photographic images typically encoded as JPEG can be encoded in WebP lossy mode to achieve smaller file size. Icons and graphics can be encoded better in WebP lossless mode than in PNG. WebP lossy with alpha can be used to create transparent images that have minimal visual degradation, yet are much smaller in file size. Animations compressed as GIFs can use animation support in WebP,” explains Google.
WebP is the one-size-fits-all solution that can replace all the other image formats. Unfortunately, it’s only supported by Chrome, Opera and Android’s browser (Ice Cream Sandwich). You can also install the WebP image codec in Windows, use image editing software that supports WebP (GIMP, ImageMagick and more) or install a Photoshop plugin.
Now you can also find WebP images using Google’s image search engine. Just add filetype:webp to your query or go to the advanced search page and select “WebP Files” in the “File types” section. Here’s an example.
If you restrict the results to .com domains, Google only returns 1830 WebP images. There are 115 results for [Google], 7-9 results for [webp] and 88 results for [image].
{ Thanks, Herin. }
