The van Genuchten curve, and its prediction by various pedotransfer functions, has long been an established method to describe the water retention curve (WRC) in soils, but it cannot be used to describe water retention under conditions dryer then the wilting point. Water retention under dry conditions follows a log linear function, which does not agree with the extrapolated van Genuchten curve. As a remedy Webb (2000) proposed an approach that predicts this linear function for the dry range with a smooth transition to the van Genuchten curve that has been fitted to experimental data for the moist range. In this work we present the prediction of water retention curves for 31 soils under dry conditions using the approach presented by Webb. In addition to the larger number of soils that we use for evaluation we deviate from the original Webb approach in two ways: (a) we use predicted (Rosetta) rather than fitted van Genuchten curves and (b) we use a corrected endpoint at zero water content. The outcome reveals good results for the prediction of water retention curves for the dry region and provides a smooth transition between the moist and the dry region of the water retention curve. Occasional inferior performance for some data is likely due to uncertainties in the texture data or in the choice of the right bulk density rather than due to conceptual shortcomings of the Webb approach. This work shows that the WRC for the whole humidity range, from oven dryness to full saturation, can be described by two functions with a smooth transition whose parameters can all be predicted by Rosetta without the need of experimental information.