The same picture, a smaller file
WEBP exists for one reason: to store the image you already have using fewer bytes. It compresses more cleverly than JPG, so at a matched visual quality the file comes out meaningfully lighter. On a page carrying a dozen photographs that difference is the gap between a site that feels instant and one that does not.
The catch is where the file goes afterwards. Inside a browser WEBP is universal. Outside one it is still patchy: plenty of desktop apps, print services and upload forms have never learned it. So convert for the web, and keep the JPG originals for everything else.
Picking a quality setting
- 85 percent, the default. A large saving with no difference you can see. Start here.
- 75 percent. Where most sites end up for hero images and galleries once they compare the two side by side.
- 95 percent and above. For images that will be edited again, where you want the compressor out of the way.
- Below 60 percent. Artefacts become visible in flat areas like skies. Use only against a hard budget.
Because these images are re-encoded from an already lossy JPG, always convert from the largest original you have rather than from a copy that has been through several saves. If your goal is simply a lighter document rather than lighter images, Compress PDF works on the whole file at once.