Convert PNG to JPG
Drop the PNG and download it as JPG, at a fraction of the size.
Drop an image here
or
PNG, JPG, WEBP, HEIC, AVIF, JXL, GIF, BMP, TIFF and SVG · up to 20 MB
When a PNG should have been a JPG
PNG and JPG aren't competitors: they solve different problems. PNG keeps every pixel as it is, which is why it's right for logos, screenshots, illustrations and anything with text or hard edges. JPG throws away detail the eye can't resolve, which is why a photograph as JPG weighs a fraction of the same photograph as PNG with no visible difference.
Trouble starts when a photograph ends up saved as PNG. It happens more often than you'd think: cropping in an editor, exporting from a tool that defaults to PNG, or downloading from a site that serves everything as PNG. The result is a multi-megabyte file that looks no better than a two-hundred-kilobyte one.
What the file gains and loses
- Size drops sharply, typically by five to ten times on a photograph.
- Transparency disappears. JPG has no alpha channel, so transparent areas get filled with the colour you choose. Without that fill they'd come out black, which is almost never what anyone wants.
- Hard edges get smeared. Halos appear around text and fine lines. On a photo you won't notice; on a screenshot you will.
- The compression is lossy and cumulative. Every re-save of a JPG loses a little more, so convert once at the end rather than round-tripping while you edit.
When not to do it
If the image has transparency you need to keep — a logo that sits on different backgrounds, a cut-out product — don't move it to JPG: it'll come back with a coloured box attached. And if it's a screenshot or a flat illustration, JPG makes it worse without saving you much.
In both cases the destination you actually want is probably WEBP: about as small as a JPG, keeps transparency, and doesn't wreck the edges.
Common questions
- Why is my PNG so large?
- Because PNG stores every pixel exactly as it is, discarding nothing. In a drawing with few colours that compresses beautifully, but in a photograph — where almost no two pixels match — there's nothing to compress and the file balloons.
- What happens to transparent areas?
- JPG stores no transparency, so they're filled with the colour you choose before converting. White is the usual pick; if the image sits on a dark background, choose that colour or you'll get a pale box around it.
- How much quality do I lose?
- It depends on the quality value. At the default 85 the loss is invisible in a photograph, and the file typically ends up five to ten times smaller. Push it lower and you'll see mottling around hard edges.
- Is it good for screenshots?
- It's exactly the case where it isn't. JPG smears hard edges, and a screenshot is all hard edges: text, one-pixel lines, window borders. You get halos around the letters. For screenshots, stay on PNG or move to WEBP.
- Can I convert back to PNG afterwards?
- You can, but nothing comes back. What JPG discarded is gone; you'd just have the same degraded image inside a larger file.