PageSpeed flags your blog images in red and the client asks why the homepage takes three seconds on mobile. You have twenty product JPGs at 800 KB each. The fastest fix without reshooting: convert to webp and serve that format wherever the browser supports it.
WebP usually weighs less than JPG at similar quality, especially on photos with uniform areas. It does not replace good practices — reasonable sizes, lazy load — but it can shave off megabytes at once. FORMARTIO converts in the browser, without uploading your files to sketchy sites.
What WebP is and why use it
It is a modern Google format adopted by Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. It supports lossy and lossless compression, and transparency like PNG with less weight in many cases.
Converting to webp makes sense for online stores, portfolios, and landing pages where every kilobyte counts on first load. For an email attachment or a form submission, JPG is still more universal.
Step by step to convert images to WebP
- Open Convert to WebP on FORMARTIO.
- Upload one or several JPG or PNG images.
- Adjust quality if the tool allows it — start at 80–85 for photos.
- Generate the WebP files and compare weight with the originals.
- Download and swap them in your CMS or static folder, keeping JPG as backup.
Quality vs weight: how not to overdo it
Lower quality until you notice artifacts in skin or sky areas; bump up one notch and stop there. Sometimes WebP at 75% weighs half of JPG at 85% with almost the same look.
Icons and flat graphics: try high quality or lossless conversion if the option exists. Product photos on white backgrounds: WebP shines because it compresses flat blocks very well.
Convert to webp in a publishing workflow
Export from Lightroom or Canva as JPG, run the batch through FORMARTIO, upload WebP to the server. Keep consistent names — product-01.webp — so you do not mix versions in the HTML.
If your WordPress or Next.js template accepts WebP natively, great. If not, some plugins generate variants on the fly; it still helps to have the file optimized at source.
Do not forget alt text and width/height in the markup. A lighter format does not fix layout shift if you do not reserve space.
When NOT to convert everything to WebP
Mass emails: many mail clients do not display WebP. Use JPG there.
Files for print shops or old vendors: they want TIFF or PDF, not WebP. Know the destination before converting the master.
Images you will edit ten more times: work in PNG or TIFF as intermediate; WebP as final delivery, not as the working file.
Try converting to webp only on above-the-fold images first; measure real improvement in Lighthouse before migrating the entire blog archive.
Compatibility in practice
Safari on iPhone supports WebP in recent versions; users on very old devices may need a JPG fallback in HTML with picture srcset. Know your audience before deleting the original JPGs entirely.
CDNs like Cloudflare can serve WebP on the fly; still, having the optimized file at origin reduces edge work and simplifies static deploys.
If your speed audit complains about image weight, do not re-export the whole catalog by hand. Convert to WebP on FORMARTIO, compare quality on screen, and publish the lighter version.