For most of us, GIMP is the best alternative to Adobe Photoshop, even though I use it on daily basis for basic image editing. Since it is Open Source I do not have to care about hefty licensing and subscription issues.
In this article, I’ll explain how to save files to WebP in GIMP. WebP is developed by Google, a modern image file format employing both lossy and lossless compression, along with animation and alpha transparency.
Google developed a WebP file format to create smaller or better-looking images compared to the JPEG, PNG, or GIF image formats so users have to download smaller sizes of the content.
Even WordPress announced that in the upcoming version release of 5.8, they are going to support WebP files, this is the reason why everyone is more curious to know to do this for free.
So check out how to save an image file to WebP using the GIMP tool:
- Step 1: Open an image file in GIMP.
- Step 2: Once the image is open in GIMP, click on the File menu → Export As.
- Step 3: An Export Image window will open where you can select save location and file type.
- First, choose where you want to export your file (in my case it is set to Desktop).
- In that window click on “Select File Type” and choose “WebP image“.
- Step 4: An Export Image as WebP window will open, here you can set image quality (default is 90, but I recommend something between 70-90 for the smaller file size).
Check out the image gallery below of the above tutorial.
So, what are the savings in the file size? Here is a clear comparison:
- The original “image.jpg” file size was 140 KB.
- Exported “image.webp” file size was 96.4 KB.
On average, you can save up to 40% in file size.
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