WebP to PNG and PNG to WebP Converter

How the WebP To PNG works

WebP to PNG: getting a good result

WebP to PNG is the conversion for a WebP you saved from a web page and now need to open in an editor, paste into a document or upload somewhere that only accepts PNG and JPG. PNG is the right target when the image has transparency or sharp edges; for photographs, WebP to JPG gives a far smaller file.

Lossless from here on. PNG stores every pixel exactly, so the PNG is a faithful copy of what the WebP decodes to and can be edited and re-saved indefinitely without further loss. What it cannot do is restore detail that a lossy WebP already discarded; if the WebP shows compression artefacts, so will the PNG, just without adding more.

Transparency. WebP alpha channels carry across in full, including partial transparency on anti-aliased edges and shadows. This is the main reason to pick PNG over JPG as the output.

Size. Expect the PNG to be several times larger than the WebP, particularly for photographs, because PNG's lossless compression finds little to exploit in photographic content. The width cap is the lever: file size follows pixel count, so halving the width quarters the data.

Animated WebP. Only the first frame is converted. PNG is a still-image format; use the GIF frame extractor for individual frames of an animation.

Metadata. The WebP is decoded to pixels and re-encoded, so any EXIF or colour profile it carried is not copied into the PNG. For an image saved from a web page that is rarely a loss, since sites strip most of it before serving anyway.

When to pick JPG instead. If the WebP is a photograph with no transparency, the PNG will be large for no benefit; the WebP to JPG converter gives a file a fraction of the size at a quality nobody will notice. Reserve PNG for logos, icons, screenshots, diagrams and anything with an alpha channel.

Going the other way: PNG to WebP

PNG to WebP is the conversion for logos, icons, screenshots and UI graphics: the things that need transparency or hard edges and have always meant a heavy PNG. WebP handles both, usually at a fraction of the size.

Lossless or lossy. At quality 100 the browser's WebP encoder is asked for lossless output, and the result decodes to exactly the same pixels as the PNG. Lossless WebP is typically 20 to 30 per cent smaller than an optimised PNG and more than that against an unoptimised one. Below 100 the encoder switches to lossy mode, which is far smaller again — often a fifth of the PNG — but introduces slight softening. For photographs saved as PNG, lossy at 80 is the right choice; for text, diagrams and pixel art, stay at 100.

Transparency is preserved. Unlike JPEG, WebP carries a full alpha channel in both lossless and lossy modes, so a transparent logo stays transparent. Semi-transparent edges and drop shadows survive as well.

Where WebP works. Every current browser, including Safari 14 and later, and every modern mobile platform. Email clients and some older desktop software do not read it, so keep the PNG for those and serve the WebP on the web.

Metadata. The PNG is decoded to pixels and re-encoded, so any colour profile, text chunks or gamma information it carried are not copied into the WebP. For a graphic that will only ever be shown on screen this rarely matters; for anything colour-managed, keep the PNG as the master and treat the WebP as a delivery copy. The converter also ignores interlacing, so an interlaced PNG simply comes out as a normal WebP.

Width. Leave blank for the original dimensions or set a cap to scale down proportionally before encoding. Scaling a screenshot down is the one thing that reliably makes it small; a 2880 px Retina capture halved to 1440 px is a quarter of the pixels.

Related tools