PNG vs JPG: Which Image Format Should You Use?
Updated August 27, 2026
PNG and JPG solve different problems. Pick the wrong one and you get either a blurry logo or a 8 MB photo that email refuses to send. Here's the whole decision in a few minutes.
The one-sentence answer
JPG for photographs and anything you share; PNG for graphics, screenshots you'll edit, and anything that needs transparency. The rest of this guide is the why — and the edge cases.
How they compress — and why it matters
JPG is lossy: it discards visual detail your eye is unlikely to miss, which is why a photo can shrink to a tenth of its raw size and still look identical. The catch is that the discarding is permanent, and it happens again every time you re-save — edit a JPG ten times and the damage accumulates.
PNG is lossless: every pixel is preserved exactly, no matter how many times you open and re-save the file. The price is size — for photographic content a PNG is routinely 5-10x larger than a visually identical JPG, which is why photo libraries and websites don't use it for photos.
Side by side
| JPG | PNG | |
|---|---|---|
| Compression | Lossy (smaller files) | Lossless (exact pixels) |
| Transparency | No — fills with a background | Yes, full alpha channel |
| Best for | Photos, sharing, email, web photos | Screenshots, logos, line art, editing masters |
| Repeated editing | Degrades with each save | Never degrades |
| Typical photo size | Small (baseline) | 5-10x larger |
| Sharp text & edges | Can show artifacts at lower quality | Always crisp |
| Compatibility | Universal | Universal |
When JPG wins
- Photographs of any kind — the compression is designed for them.
- Email attachments and upload forms with size limits.
- Web pages where load speed matters (or go further with WebP).
- Final deliverables that nobody will edit again.
When PNG wins
- Logos, icons, and any graphic needing a transparent background.
- Screenshots with text or UI — JPG artifacts show around sharp edges.
- Files you'll keep editing — PNG never loses quality on re-save.
- Line art, charts, and flat-color graphics (these often compress smaller as PNG than as JPG).
Converting between them
Both directions take seconds in your browser, with nothing uploaded: PNG to JPG shrinks graphics-turned-photos for sharing, and JPG to PNG gives a photo a lossless container before editing. One expectation to set: converting JPG to PNG stops future quality loss but can't restore detail the JPG already threw away.
Sharing a PNG that must stay a PNG? The Image Compressor squeezes it losslessly instead.