JPG vs PNG: Which Image Format Should You Use?

JPG and PNG are the two most common image formats, and choosing the wrong one gives you blurry text, huge files or a white box where a transparent background should be. Here is how to choose.

Open the tool: JPG to PNG Converter

Photos: use JPG (or WebP)

Photos have smooth gradients and millions of colors. JPG compresses them very well, and at a quality of 80 to 90 the loss is hard to see. The same photo as PNG is often several times larger with no visible benefit.

Screenshots, text and diagrams: use PNG

JPG compression creates faint smudges around sharp edges, which is very visible around letters and lines. PNG keeps those edges crisp. Screenshots of documents, code and user interfaces should almost always be PNG.

Logos and anything with a transparent background: use PNG

Only PNG (and WebP) can store transparency. A logo saved as JPG always has a rectangular background. Keep the master copy of a logo as PNG or SVG and create JPG versions only when a service requires them.

Websites: consider WebP

According to Google, WebP lossless images are 26% smaller than PNGs, and lossy WebP images are 25 to 34% smaller than comparable JPGs. All current major browsers display WebP, so it is a good default for web images. Our JPG to WebP converter does this in the browser.

Avoid repeated JPG saves

Each time a JPG is opened, edited and saved as JPG again, it is compressed again and loses a little more quality. If you edit a photo in several rounds, work on a PNG copy and export the final version as JPG or WebP once.