@martijn_saly_5922019 DNG is also open-source, but none of the major camera companies uses DNG. Do you use DNG? None of the major camera companies uses WebP either.
The continued lack of official WEBP support in Lightroom is unacceptable
WEBP is highly efficient, delivering smaller filesizes for better quality than JPEG, all modern browsers support WEBP (including Safari) and as a result it's rapidly becoming the standard format for images on the web, replacing both JPEG and PNG.
WebP exists since 2010 and has an industry-standard for pictures on the web. Yet Adobe doesn't seem to bother. I cannot export them neither in LR nor PS. Yes, there are plugins for PS, but I do my bulk-exports for eventphotos in LR and have no need for PS for sports pictures (for example).
Programs like ACDSee support the webp-format, I still need to convert them after exporting. Pls Adobe implement that format in LR so I don't have to convert hundreds of pictures every time I exported them from LR.
@SensationElle Scroll up, there is an automatable solution above.
I've got computers and devices that can not show webp images, but thankfully the format isn't that prevalent even if you think it "has an industry standard". Not to say it's not used in your niche though.
I don't wanna install a bunch of other applications (and I meant "have to convert them" automatic or not - it still needs a step outside of LR).
And yes... I know, some browser still have issues with WebP. I still hope they come around and support a format that has a wider color spectrum and saves a nice bit of the file sizes at the same time.
WebP is an 8-bit format, so can it really have a wide colour gamut? If you really want wider colour gamut, perhaps you should look at HEIF/HEIC or AVIF. HEIC images are also half the size of JPEG with better quality and more features.
Lossy WebP compression has arguably worse picture quality than JPEG, depending on your image type.
For everyone: if you are interested in following his suggestion, here is how to do it using Google WebpTools.
Please note: the solution works for Windows only, as we need to create and use a DOS batch file. This DOS batch file will be executed after each of your EXPORT actions, and it will create a .WEBP converted version of your images in the same folder you exported the .JPEG one.
1) download the Goole WebpTools and extract the zip file in a folder. Please extract the files in a folder that you are not going to change, otherwise the batch we are going to build in a few moments will need adjustments.
To simplify the explanation, I will assume that you extracted the files in a folder C:\WEBP, which therefore should contain the subfolders BIN, INCLUDE, LIB and the other files included in the Webp zip file.
The important thing is that in C:\WEBP\BIN you should have the CWEBP.EXE file.
2) in C:\WEBP, create a new text file calling it CONVERT.BAT. Right click on it and select EDIT (with Windows 11, after right clicking you will first need to select "Show More Options" to see the EDIT menu item). The file is normally opened with Notepad.
3) simply copy in Notepad the following batch command, and then save the file.
FOR %%x IN (%*) DO C:\WEBP\BIN\CWEBP.EXE -q 85 %%x -o "%%~dx%%~px%%~nx.webp"
What does it do? Well: the EXPORT feature of Lightroom will call this batch file passing him ALL the path of the images we have exported, one after one.
And the FOR... DO loop will execute, for each of them, the CWEBP.EXE command, converting each image in WEBP format, and saving it in the same folder as the original image.
The "85" you see is the QUALITY of the conversion. If you want a different quality, simply change that value.
The strange %%~dx%%~px%%~nx.webp is used to remove from the path of the image the file extension (i.e. I need to get rid of ".JPEG"). As you can see, I am appending the ".WEBP" extension to it.
4) Now, let's configure Lightroom so that it executes that batch after each JPEG export. I think you already created a custom EXPORT Preset in Lightroom to export your images as JPEG, right? Otherwise please first create a JPEG export preset in Lightroom, a simple one is enought.
Now in Lightroom go to FILE menu, then select "EXPORT...", left click on your preset, on the right part of the form go to the bottom section "Post processing", and in After Export select the "Open in Other Application..." option.
Then click on "Choose..." button and browse to C:\WEBP, selecting the CONVERT.BAT we've just created.
IMPORTANT: before clicking on DONE, don't forget to RIGHT CLICK on your preset (in the left "Preset:" listbox) and select "Update with current settings", otherwise your recent changes to the preset will be lost.
Now you can click on "DONE".
You're done.
To verify that everything is set correctly, reopen FILE\EXPORT..., select your preset, and verify in "Post-Procssing" that you see "Open in Other application" in After Export, and you see "C:\WEBP\BIN\CONVERT.BAT" in the "Application".
Now you can select your images in Lightroom and then select the EXPORT preset we've just modified. In the export folder, you will find both .JPEG and WEBP files.
If you want to see what the CONVERT.BAT does, please simply add a PAUSE at the end of the CONVERT.BAT file. Like this:
FOR %%x IN (%*) DO C:\WEBP\BIN\CWEBP.EXE -q 85 %%x -o "%%~dx%%~px%%~nx.webp"
PAUSE
The batch will pause after the execution, so that you can read the information in the DOS screen where CWEBP is executed. Simply type ENTER and the DOS screen will close.
I hope it'll be helpful for you! Thanks again @johnrellis for suggesting that, I've never realized there was a "post processing" feature in the Export presets!
Please add native support for WebP image format in Lightroom Classic / Lightroom. Both the ability to import WebP images, but also ability to export images in this format.
At the moment Photoshop can open WebP images, but not Lightroom, for some reason.
This would allow cataloguing and managing all those WebP files we have. For example, I have a large collection DNGs, PNGs etc. AND WebP files. There is no means I can manage those WebP images in Lightroom at the moment. I could convert them to, for example, PNGs but I'd like to (and need to) keep them in their original format. Also, having to do file conversions all the time is not very productive either and greatly interferes with the workflow.
It is already pretty widely used and adopted image format, so it's hard to understand why there is no support yet.
With WebP supported by all modern browsers now, it would be incredibly useful if Lightroom Classic could export this format directly, in particular for Publish Collections.
(I'm using WP/LR Sync to upload files directly to my WordPress site from Lightroom Classic; WordPress supports WebP...).
Thank you @MisterMagoo It work great. Only finding the correct zip file to download was not so easy. But the rest is perfectly explained and easy to do.
Hi @michelep1011223 , I cannot check it now, but it should be enough to add at the end of the batch file (but before the PAUSE command, if you decided to keep it) this line:
FOR %%x IN (%*) DO DEL %%x
It should be working. Give it a try with a couple of test images 🙂
I’d like to be able to export/import WebP files in Lightroom to cut down on file sizes for lossy lores projects.
I’m either painting digitally or taking photos of art with a makeshift setup. These images are not highly refined and do not require lossless formats, which take prohibitive amounts of disk space. I’m happy that jpeg is supported (though, oddly, not with Photoshop’s efficiency), but WebP is superior, providing the same resolution at a significantly smaller file size.
More important, these files are ultimately intended for display on portable devices, where storage is limited. It would make no sense to organize them as lossless files in Lightroom and then have to maintain a separate storage system for the fully processed images. I need Lightroom to be the master organizational solution.
Recently Photoshop added full support for WebP, which many users will use for internet projects, and they then will have resources that they will want to organize in Lightroom. Surely that provides some incentive for Adobe to add this feature.
Bottom line: There’s no reason to exclude this well-established lossy format (WebP), when Lightroom already supports an inferior option (jpeg).
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