Why is my PNG so much bigger than a JPG?

PNG is lossless and stores every pixel exactly, which is great for graphics but heavy for photos. JPG compresses smartly, so photos shrink a lot.

JPG is lossy, but at high quality the difference is hard to see — and the file is far smaller.

When should I keep a PNG instead of converting to JPG?

When the image has a transparent background, or when it is mostly text, lines or flat colour, like a screenshot of a spreadsheet or a logo. JPG softens hard edges and fills transparency with white.

Is it safe to convert a scanned document from PNG to JPG?

For reading and emailing, yes; the text stays legible and the file shrinks a lot. If the scan will be run through OCR or printed at high quality, keep the PNG original, since JPG artefacts can blur fine strokes.

Convert PNG to JPG

Turn PNG images into smaller, universal JPG files in your browser.

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A PNG of a photograph is a mismatch: the format stores every pixel exactly, which is wasted effort on a picture of a beach or a face, and the result is a file four to ten times larger than the same image as a JPG. Design-tool exports and pictures saved from web pages are the usual suspects. Converting them to JPG brings the size down to something an email, a marketplace listing or a CMS accepts without complaint.

The conversion is done by your browser's own image engine, so there is no upload and nothing to install: choose the file, download the JPG. Two things to know before you do. JPG has no transparency, so a logo or cut-out on a transparent background will come back on white; keep those as PNG or convert them to WebP instead. And JPG is lossy, which is why it is small; sharp-edged content such as text, diagrams and line art can show faint halos around the edges, so screenshots of code or spreadsheets are often better left as PNG.

For photographs, the loss is hard to see and the saving is large. Convert once, from the original, rather than converting back and forth: a JPG turned back into PNG does not regain anything, it only locks in the loss at a larger file size.

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Frequently asked questions

Why is my PNG so much bigger than a JPG?: PNG is lossless and stores every pixel exactly, which is great for graphics but heavy for photos. JPG compresses smartly, so photos shrink a lot.
Will I lose quality?: JPG is lossy, but at high quality the difference is hard to see — and the file is far smaller.
When should I keep a PNG instead of converting to JPG?: When the image has a transparent background, or when it is mostly text, lines or flat colour, like a screenshot of a spreadsheet or a logo. JPG softens hard edges and fills transparency with white.
Is it safe to convert a scanned document from PNG to JPG?: For reading and emailing, yes; the text stays legible and the file shrinks a lot. If the scan will be run through OCR or printed at high quality, keep the PNG original, since JPG artefacts can blur fine strokes.

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