When we first heard about “Next-Generation Image Formats” we just thought “What? What is that about and why would we need this?”
The term “Next-Generation Image Formats” refers to newer image formats WebP, JPEG 2000, JPEG XR. These are newer image formats than JPG or PNG, the good old image formats we are all used to work with ever since.
Each of these new file formats, WebP, JPEG 2000 and JPEG XR, promises to have advanced compression algorithms compared to our traditional and well-known companions JPG and PNG. Better compression for images means, smaller file sizes while retaining the quality characteristics of an image.
Smaller images mean better performance, faster page loads. Sounds good, right?
Can we improve Magento 2 performance through image optimization by using e. g. WebP?
To be honest, we were quite skeptical when we started looking into this…