JPG vs PNG: Which Image Format Should You Use?
Two formats dominate the web, and picking the wrong one means blurry logos or bloated pages. Here's the no-jargon breakdown of when to use JPG, when to use PNG, and how to convert between them.
The 30-second version
- Use JPG for photographs and complex, colorful images. It's much smaller.
- Use PNG for logos, icons, screenshots, text graphics, and anything needing transparency. It's pixel-perfect.
That's the rule of thumb. The rest of this article is the why, plus the exceptions that trip people up.
How they actually differ
JPG: small files, lossy compression
JPG (or JPEG) was designed for photographs. It throws away fine detail your eyes barely notice, which shrinks a 5 MB photo to 300 KB. The catch: every time you re-save a JPG, it loses a little more quality. Edit a JPG ten times and you'll see smudgy artifacts around sharp edges. That's "generation loss."
JPG also has no transparency. Every pixel is fully opaque, so a "transparent" JPG background is really just white (or whatever color the exporter filled in).
PNG: perfect quality, bigger files
PNG is lossless. What you put in is exactly what you get out, no matter how many times you re-save. It supports full transparency, including soft semi-transparent edges. The price is file size: a PNG photo can be 5–10× larger than the same image as a JPG.
Side-by-side: common cases
| Situation | Winner | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Product photo on a website | JPG | Small file, loads fast, quality difference invisible |
| Company logo | PNG | Crisp edges, transparent background |
| Screenshot of an app | PNG | Text stays razor-sharp; JPG would smudge it |
| Blog hero image | JPG | Photographic content, size matters for SEO |
| Icon or favicon source | PNG | Sharp at small sizes, supports transparency |
| Photo you're going to edit repeatedly | PNG (while editing) | Avoid generation loss; export final as JPG |
The mistakes everyone makes
Saving a logo as JPG
The #1 offender. A JPG logo on a colored background gets a fuzzy white halo and muddy edges. If your logo looks "dirty" on your site, this is almost certainly why. Re-export it as PNG with transparency.
Saving a photo as PNG
The #2 offender. A 4 MB PNG hero image slows your page to a crawl and hurts search rankings. Convert it to JPG at 75–85% quality. Visually identical, a tenth of the size.
Screenshotting text as JPG
Chat apps and some phones save screenshots as JPG by default, turning crisp text into a smeary mess. If you're sharing a screenshot that contains text, convert or re-save it as PNG first.
Converting between them
Need to switch formats? Our free image converter turns JPG into PNG and back in seconds, right in your browser. Your images never get uploaded anywhere. Two things to know before converting:
- JPG → PNG won't restore quality already lost, and it won't magically create transparency. It just stops further degradation. Useful as an editing intermediate.
- PNG → JPG flattens transparency to a solid background (usually white) and applies lossy compression. Pick your quality setting: 80% is the sweet spot for web photos.
What about WebP and AVIF?
Newer formats (WebP, AVIF) beat both JPG and PNG on size. Sometimes dramatically. They're excellent for web publishing if your audience uses modern browsers. But JPG and PNG remain the universal safe choice: everything opens them, everywhere, with no compatibility surprises. For files you're sending to other people (not publishing on your own site), stick with JPG/PNG.
Quick checklist before you export
- Is it a photo or photorealistic? → JPG, quality 75–85%.
- Does it have text, sharp lines, or flat colors? → PNG.
- Does it need transparency? → PNG (JPG can't do it).
- Is the file over ~500 KB for web use? → convert to JPG or compress it.
Bottom line
JPG for photos, PNG for graphics. Get those two right and you'll avoid 95% of image-quality problems. And when you need to switch, the image converter handles it privately in your browser.