How to Open WebP Images in Adobe Photoshop

Opening .WebP files within older versions of Adobe Photoshop is not native. Meaning you will need a way to instruct Adobe Photoshop on handling such an image file. This article will show you a quick and easy way of doing so. Note that this should work for the following versions of Adobe Photoshop: 7.0, CS2, CS3, CS4, CS5 and CS6.

What is WebP Image Format?

WebP is yet another lossy or lossless image file format, producing a low file size and high quality. The WebP image compression format was developed by Google, Inc. and designed to help reduce the file size of images greater than that of traditional .jpg compression.

Opening WebP in Photoshop

We will need a plugin to be able to open .WebP files from within Adobe Photoshop. Brendan Bolles of fnordware has come to many of our rescue by creating such a plugin.

Once downloaded, unzip the files and access the folder for your particular operating system. Don’t know what version of Windows you are operating? You can find out by pressing the Windows Key + Pause/Break on your keyboard. The “System type” will show you what bit operating system you are using.

From within the proper bit folder, copy the WebP.8bi file and paste it into the appropriate directory.

• For 64bit copy to directory: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS6 (64 Bit)\Plug-ins\

You will need to restart Adobe Photoshop for the plugin to be loaded, which is done upon initiation. Now you can open WebP files in Photoshop.

Note that if the WebP file contains animation (multiple images), it will only display the first image and not the subsequent ones. To edit animated WebP files you will need a different solution. If you find it, please let me know so that I can update this article accordingly.

Convert Images to WebP in Photoshop

After you install the Photoshop plugin above, you will be able to use the “Save As” option (not Save For Web) and select WebP.

The WebP Options window will appear (see image below) and allow you to select between WebP Lossless or WebP Lossy.

The difference between WebP Lossless and WebP Lossy is similar to the difference between JPEG and PNG images. JPEG images are lossy while PNG images are lossless.

I recommend using WebP Lossy when converting JPEG images and WebP Lossless when converting PNG images. But I also recommend playing around with these settings to see which gets you the best results.

WordPress Support for WebP Images

WordPress does not currently support the uploading of WebP images. However, you can use any of the most popular image optimization plugins to bypass this limitation.

Also, WordPress will finally begin supporting WebP images upon the release of version 5.8 which is scheduled for release around the 20th of July 2021.

Conclusion

I hope this article has helped you open WebP images in Photoshop. I welcome your thoughts, questions or suggestions regarding this article.

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Let me know if you found any errors within my article or if I may further assist you by answering any additional questions you may have.

Editor Notes:

• This article was first published on October 3rd, 2019 and was revised on July 7th, 2021 to include how to convert images to WebP in photoshop.
• The URL was changed from “How to Open WebP Files in Adobe Photoshop” to “How to Open WebP Images in Adobe Photoshop” for greater search relevancy.