JPG vs PNG vs WebP: Which Image Format Should You Use?
Three formats cover almost everything, and the choice is less about which is best than about what each was designed for. The Image Format Converter moves a file between them, but it helps to know which way you should be going.
JPEG is for photographs
JPEG throws away detail to get small, and it throws away the kind of detail photographs can spare - fine colour variation across smooth gradients. A photograph at a sensible quality setting loses most of its file size and nothing you can see.
What it is bad at is hard edges. Text, line art, a screenshot of a user interface, a logo with a crisp outline - JPEG surrounds all of these with faint grey fringing, because sharp transitions are exactly what its compression cannot represent. It also has no transparency at all. A JPEG always has a rectangular opaque background.
PNG is for graphics and transparency
PNG compression is lossless. Nothing is discarded, which makes it right for anything with flat colour and sharp lines: logos, icons, diagrams, screenshots. It also supports a full transparency channel, so a cut-out subject can sit on any background - which is why the Background Remover hands back a PNG.
The cost is size. A photograph saved as PNG can be five or ten times larger than the same photograph as JPEG, with no visible benefit. Photographs saved as PNG are one of the commonest reasons a web page is needlessly slow.
WebP is smaller than both
WebP does both jobs. It has a lossy mode that beats JPEG by roughly a quarter at the same visible quality, and a lossless mode with transparency that beats PNG. Every current browser supports it, so for images on a web page it is usually the right answer.
Where it still causes friction is outside the browser. Plenty of desktop software, print workflows and older systems will not open a WebP, so it is a poor choice for a file you are emailing to someone or sending to a printer. For those, convert back to JPEG or PNG.
A short way to decide
If it is a photograph for the web, WebP, or JPEG when compatibility matters. If it needs transparency, WebP or PNG. If it is a logo, icon, diagram or screenshot, PNG, or WebP lossless. If it is going to anyone outside a browser, JPEG for photographs and PNG for everything else.
Common questions
Will converting a JPEG to PNG improve its quality?
No. The detail JPEG discarded is gone, and PNG will faithfully preserve the damage in a much larger file. Convert the other way when you want it smaller.
Does converting lose quality?
Going to a lossy format does, every time, so convert from the best original you have rather than from an already-compressed copy. Lossless conversions do not.
What about GIF?
Only for short looping animation, and even then a video file is usually smaller and better. For a still image, GIF is limited to 256 colours and is worse than PNG at everything.
Which format is best for a logo on a dark background?
PNG or lossless WebP, with real transparency. A JPEG logo will carry a white rectangle wherever you place it.
Need a file in a different format?