JPG, PNG or WebP? How to Choose the Right Image Format

The short answer

• Photos: JPG. It’s small and opens everywhere.
• Screenshots, logos, text and anything with transparency: PNG. Edges stay perfectly sharp.
• Images for a website: WebP. It’s smaller than both at similar quality.

The rest of this guide explains why, and what to watch out for when you convert.

JPG: made for photos

JPG (or JPEG) uses lossy compression: it throws away detail your eye is unlikely to notice, which makes photos much smaller. You choose how much with a quality setting. Around 80–90% looks the same as the original for most photos.

Two things to know. First, every time a JPG is edited and saved again, it loses a little more detail, so keep your originals. Second, JPG has no transparency: transparent areas have to become a solid colour.

PNG: sharp edges and transparency

PNG is lossless: every pixel is stored exactly. That makes it ideal for screenshots, text, diagrams, logos and icons, where JPG would leave blurry smudges around sharp edges. PNG also supports transparency, so a logo can sit on any background.

The downside is size. A photo saved as PNG is often several times bigger than the same photo as a JPG, without looking any better.

WebP: smaller files for the web

WebP was created by Google for websites. It can be lossy like JPG or lossless like PNG, and it supports transparency. According to Google, lossy WebP images are 25–34% smaller than JPGs of similar quality, and lossless WebP is about 26% smaller than PNG. Smaller images make pages load faster.

Every modern browser shows WebP, but some older programs, printers and upload forms don’t accept it yet. If a WebP file won’t open somewhere, convert it to JPG.

Side by side

	JPG	PNG	WebP
Best for	Photos	Screenshots, logos, text	Websites
Compression	Lossy	Lossless	Lossy or lossless
Transparency	No	Yes	Yes
File size	Small	Large for photos	Smallest
Opens everywhere	Yes	Yes	Almost

Converting between formats

• PNG to JPG is the classic way to shrink a photo that was saved as PNG. Transparent areas become white.
• JPG to PNG doesn’t bring back detail the JPG already lost, and the file gets bigger. Do it only when an app requires PNG, or when you want to edit the image without losing more quality each time you save.
• JPG to WebP makes images lighter for a website. Keep the JPG as a backup for apps that don’t read WebP.
• Too big either way? Compressing, or resizing to the size you actually need, often saves more than changing the format.

Our converters run in your browser, so your images are never uploaded. They also leave out the photo’s hidden metadata, such as the location where it was taken, which is good for privacy when you share images online.