The short answer
- A photo you want to share, send or print: JPG.
- A screenshot, logo, diagram, or anything with a transparent background: PNG.
- An image for a website you run: WebP.
If you’re unsure, JPG for photos and PNG for everything else is never wrong. WebP is the upgrade when you control where the image is shown.
How they compare
| JPG | PNG | WebP | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Compression | Lossy | Lossless | Lossy or lossless |
| Transparency | No | Yes | Yes |
| Animation | No | Rarely (APNG) | Yes |
| Best for | Photos | Screenshots, graphics, text, logos | Images on websites |
| Opens everywhere? | Yes | Yes | In browsers, yes. Some older apps, no |
JPG: made for photos
JPG is lossy: it throws away fine detail that the eye barely notices, especially in photos where colours change gradually. At 70–85% quality most photos look the same as the original, in a fraction of the space a PNG would take.
Its weak spot is sharp edges and flat colour. Text, screenshots and logos saved as JPG pick up faint smudges and halos around edges, called artefacts. JPG also has no transparency, and every time you edit and re-save a JPG it loses a little more, so keep the original and edit from that.
PNG: every pixel exactly
PNG is lossless: what you save is exactly what you get back. That makes it the right choice for screenshots, interface designs, diagrams, logos and anything containing text. It also supports transparency, including soft, partly see-through edges.
The cost is size. A photo saved as PNG is often several times larger than the same photo as a JPG, with no visible benefit. If a PNG is too big, reducing the number of colours it uses can shrink it a lot while keeping edges crisp. That is what the Image Compressor does with PNGs.
WebP: smaller files for the web
WebP was designed by Google for websites. It has a lossy mode like JPG and a lossless mode like PNG, and supports transparency and animation. In Google’s own comparisons, lossy WebP files were 25–34% smaller than JPGs of similar quality, and lossless WebP files about 26% smaller than PNGs.
Every current browser can display WebP, including Safari since version 14. Where it falls down is outside the browser: some older desktop software, print services and upload forms only accept JPG or PNG. So use WebP for pages you publish, and send a JPG when you don’t know what the other person will open it with.
What about AVIF, HEIC and GIF?
- AVIF is newer and often smaller again than WebP. Current browsers display it, but fewer apps support it and it is slow to create. Browsers can show AVIF but can’t save it from a web page, which is why the tools on this site save AVIF files as WebP instead. To open an AVIF in an app that doesn’t support it, use AVIF to JPG.
- HEIC is the iPhone camera’s default. It is efficient, but Windows and many apps can’t open it. See how to convert HEIC photos to JPG.
- GIF is limited to 256 colours. For still images PNG is better in every way; for animation, a short video or an animated WebP is far smaller.
Converting between them
- JPG to PNG doesn’t bring back detail the JPG already lost. It only makes the file bigger, so do it when an app specifically needs PNG. Use JPG to PNG.
- PNG to JPG loses transparency: see-through areas have to be filled with a colour. It is the biggest single saving for photos that were saved as PNG by mistake. Use PNG to JPG.
- JPG to WebP re-compresses the image, so start from the best-quality version you have, not a copy that has already been compressed several times. Use JPG to WebP.
- WebP to JPG is the fix when an app or website refuses a WebP. Use WebP to JPG.