PyWebp: Image to WebP Converter

Pywebp is a versatile command-line tool written in Python for converting images to the WebP format. WebP offers superior lossless and lossy compression, enabling smaller, richer images that enhance web performance.

Key Features

• Ease of Use: Convert single images or entire directories with simple commands.
• Versatility: Options for recursive processing and maintaining directory structure.
• Quality Control: Adjust output quality, optimize, and resize images.
• Advanced Features:
  • Multithreading for faster processing of large batches.
  • Verbose output for detailed feedback or quiet mode for minimal output.
  • Unlink input images after processing to manage disk space.

Whether you're a web developer optimizing site images or a photographer converting your portfolio, Pywebp provides a comprehensive solution for your image conversion needs.

Arguments

Positional Parameters

• input: Input directory. Default is the current directory.
• output: Output directory. Default is the current directory.

Options

• resize: Resize image to the given size. e.g., 640x800.
• min-width: Skips images that are smaller than the given width.
• min-height: Skips images that are smaller than the given height.
• max-width: Skips images that are larger than the given width.
• max-height: Skips images that are larger than the given height.
• keep-aspect-ratio: Keep the original aspect ratio while resizing. Default is True.
• files-format: Input files format. e.g., png, jpg, jpeg.
• quality: Integer, 0-100. For lossy, 0 gives the smallest size and 100 the largest. For lossless, this parameter is the amount of effort put into the compression: 0 is the fastest, but gives larger files compared to the slowest, but best, 100. Default is 80.
• alpha-quality: Integer, 0-100. For lossy compression only. 0 gives the smallest size and 100 is lossless. Default is 100.
• lossless: Enable lossless compression. Default is False.
• method: Quality/speed trade-off (0=fast, 6=slower-better). Default is 4.
• exact: If true, preserve the transparent RGB values. Otherwise, discard invisible RGB values for better compression. Default is False.
• keep-directory: Keep the directory structure of the input. Default is True.
• recursive: Convert images in subdirectories. Default is False.
• use-threads: Use multiple threads. Default is False.
• threads: Number of threads to use. None = Max possible (4 * N of cores, limited to 32).
• unlink: Unlink/delete the input files. Default is False.
• ignore-existing: Ignore existing files. Default is True.

Usage

To convert images using Pywebp, you can use the following command:

pywebp convert ./input_directory ./output_directory --resize 640x800 --quality 90 --lossless --recursive

This command will:

• Convert all images in the ./images directory to WebP format.
• Resize the images to 640x800 pixels.
• Set the quality of the output images to 90.
• Enable lossless compression.
• Process images in subdirectories of the ./images directory.

You can adjust the parameters as needed to fit your specific use case.