Image Converter

The Four Formats Explained

PNG stores every pixel exactly as it was, which makes it lossless. It supports full transparency and is the correct home for screenshots, logos, icons, diagrams and anything containing text or hard edges. Its weakness is photographs, where files often run several times larger than a lossy format for no visible gain.

JPG is the oldest of the four and still the most universally accepted. It handles photographs well and is understood by every device, camera, printer and upload form ever made. It cannot store transparency at all, and it shows its age against newer codecs at the same visual quality.

WebP is the sensible modern default. It produces files roughly a quarter to a third smaller than JPG at comparable quality, supports transparency, and every current browser displays it. For most web work it is simply a better JPG with the advantages of PNG bolted on.

AVIF compresses harder still, often twenty to thirty percent below WebP, and is particularly good with gradients, skies and dark scenes where older formats produce banding. The trade is speed: AVIF takes noticeably longer to encode, and some browsers can display it without being able to create it.

How to Convert an Image

Add your files: Drag them onto the drop area, click it to browse, or press Ctrl+V to paste from the clipboard. Formats can be mixed freely in one batch, so a folder containing PNGs and JPGs can all be converted to WebP in a single pass.

Pick the target format: The four buttons cover WebP, JPG, PNG and AVIF. The quality slider becomes active for the three lossy formats and is greyed out for PNG, which has no quality setting to give.

Choose a background if asked: When you convert transparent images to JPG, a colour picker appears. Whatever you choose fills the transparent areas, because JPG has nowhere to record them.

Convert and download: Every row reports the format change, the old and new file size and the percentage saved. Save files one at a time or take the batch as a ZIP. Copy Summary puts a plain-text report of the whole run on your clipboard.

Which Format Should You Pick

For a website, choose WebP. It is smaller than JPG, keeps transparency, and works in every browser people actually use. Unless something specific stops you, this is the right answer for photographs, illustrations and interface graphics alike.

For screenshots and logos, choose PNG. Lossy formats smear text and sharp edges, producing a faint halo around every letter. Lossless PNG keeps them crisp, and for flat-colour graphics it is often smaller than the lossy alternative too.

For maximum compatibility, choose JPG. Older systems, print workflows, some content management systems and many upload forms still expect it. It is the safe answer when you do not control what happens next.

For the smallest possible file, choose AVIF. Worth the slower encode when bandwidth genuinely matters, such as a large gallery or a hero image on a mobile-heavy site. Keep a WebP fallback if your audience includes older browsers.

Transparency and Backgrounds

An alpha channel records how see-through each pixel is. PNG, WebP, AVIF and GIF all have one. It is what lets a logo sit on any coloured background without a white box around it.

JPG has no alpha channel at all. Converting a transparent image to JPG means those pixels must become a solid colour. Many tools silently fill them with black, which is why logos converted carelessly come back with an ugly dark rectangle.

This tool asks instead of guessing. When the target format cannot hold transparency and your batch contains images that might use it, you choose the fill colour. White suits most documents and light pages; dark grey or black suits dark interfaces.

Converting the other way does not restore it. Turning a JPG into a PNG gives you a lossless copy of a flattened image. The transparency is not recoverable, because the information was destroyed when the JPG was made.

Lossy, Lossless and Quality

Lossless means nothing is discarded. PNG rearranges data so it occupies less space, and the original pixels can be reconstructed exactly. Converting PNG to PNG changes nothing about the image.

Lossy means detail is traded for size. JPG, WebP and AVIF throw away information the eye is poor at noticing. The quality slider decides how much: 85 is a good general setting, above 90 adds bytes for little visible gain, and below about 60 artefacts start to show on flat areas and edges.

Repeated lossy conversion accumulates damage. Each pass discards a little more, and the losses compound. Converting JPG to WebP to AVIF and back again visibly degrades an image. Always start from the best original you have.

PNG to JPG and Back Again

PNG to JPG is the most common conversion, usually because a form rejects PNG or because a screenshot-heavy PNG is unexpectedly large. It works well for photographic content and badly for text. Remember that transparency will be filled.

JPG to PNG is often pointless. The result is lossless, but it is a lossless copy of an already lossy image, so quality does not improve while the file usually grows. The legitimate reasons are needing a format that accepts an alpha channel for later editing, or satisfying a system that demands PNG.

PNG to WebP is usually the better move. WebP keeps the transparency PNG had and cuts the file substantially, which is why it has largely replaced both on the modern web.

Browser Support in Practice

Displaying and creating are different capabilities. A browser can be able to show a format without being able to encode it. This matters for a tool like this one, which uses the browser as its engine.

WebP is safe everywhere. Every current browser both displays and creates it, which is why it is the fallback here when something else is unavailable.

AVIF encoding is the patchy one. Support has improved a great deal but is still not universal. If your browser cannot produce AVIF, the file is saved as WebP and the row says so plainly, rather than handing you a file that is not what you asked for.

Privacy and Metadata

No file leaves your device. Conversion uses the Canvas API in your browser. Load the page, disconnect from the network, and it still converts. There is no upload, no temporary storage and no log of what you processed.

EXIF is removed in the process. Redrawing an image copies pixels only, so camera model, capture time and GPS coordinates do not survive the conversion. For sharing photographs this is usually welcome; if you need the metadata, keep an untouched original.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Converting screenshots to JPG. Text is exactly what lossy compression handles worst. Keep screenshots as PNG, or WebP if the file size matters.

Expecting a conversion to repair quality. Moving a blurry or artefacted JPG into PNG or AVIF preserves the flaws perfectly. Format changes cannot undo earlier damage.

Forgetting the background on transparent images. Converting logos to JPG without thinking about it is how white boxes and black rectangles end up in presentations.

Converting back and forth repeatedly. Each lossy step costs a little quality. Decide on the target format and convert once, from the original.

Frequently Asked Questions