JPG vs PNG: Which Image Format Should You Use?
JPG and PNG have shared the web for decades, and picking the wrong one costs you either quality or bandwidth. This guide explains what each format is genuinely good at and what to expect when you convert a JPG to PNG.
The core difference
JPG uses lossy compression. It throws away detail your eye is unlikely to notice, which makes photographs dramatically smaller but permanently removes information.
PNG uses lossless compression. Every pixel is preserved exactly, and it supports transparency — but photographic images can end up several times larger than the JPG equivalent.
- Photographs and camera images: JPG.
- Screenshots, logos, diagrams, text and flat colour: PNG.
- Anything needing a transparent background: PNG.
- Images you plan to edit repeatedly: PNG, to avoid stacked compression damage.
What happens when you convert JPG to PNG
Converting is a one-way improvement in stability, not in quality. Detail already discarded by JPG compression cannot come back, but the PNG copy will not lose anything more, no matter how many times you save it.
Expect the file to grow. A 400 KB photo can easily become a 2 MB PNG, because lossless compression stores every pixel.
Converting step by step
Open the JPG to PNG Converter and drop your file onto the upload area. The PNG version is generated straight away in your browser.
Compare the two file sizes shown beneath the previews, then download the PNG. If the result is larger than you want, resize it first and convert again.
Common mistakes
- Expecting a transparent background — JPG has no transparency to restore.
- Using PNG for every photo on a page, which slows loading badly.
- Re-saving the same JPG over and over instead of working from a lossless master.
- Ignoring WebP, which often beats both formats for web delivery.