JPG to PNG

Why convert JPG to PNG

Some apps, upload forms and design tools ask for PNG, and a JPG won’t do. PNG is also the safer format for an image you’ll edit and save again and again: every time a JPG is saved, it’s compressed a little more and loses a little detail, while a PNG stays exactly as it is however often it’s saved. Converting once, at the start, stops that slow wear.

How to convert

1. Choose up to 30 JPG images, each up to 50 MB. You can also drop them on the box or paste one.
2. Press Convert to PNG.
3. Download each PNG, or all of them together as a ZIP.

What changes, and what doesn’t

The picture itself doesn’t change. The PNG holds exactly the pixels your browser decoded from the JPG, so it looks the same, including any slight blur or blockiness the JPG already had. What changes is how it’s stored: PNG compresses without throwing anything away, which works well for flat colors and sharp lines but not for the fine, varied detail of a photo. Expect the PNG of a photo to be larger, often by several times.

Photos taken sideways on a phone come out the right way up: the JPG’s rotation setting is applied to the pixels, so the PNG doesn’t depend on an app reading it.

When to keep the JPG

If you only need to send or store a photo, the JPG is usually the better file: it’s smaller, and almost everything opens it. Choose PNG when a tool requires it, when the image is a screenshot, chart or logo saved as JPG by mistake and you’ll keep editing it, or when you need a format that won’t lose more detail with each save.

What else to know

• Size in pixels stays the same. To make it smaller, use the Image Resizer.
• Camera details, such as the date, the phone model and GPS location, aren’t copied into the PNG.
• Names: each PNG keeps its JPG’s name with a new ending, so holiday.jpg becomes holiday.png. A file that can’t be read gets its own message, and the rest still convert.