PNG vs JPG: what’s the difference, and which should you use?

PNG and JPG are the two image formats everyone has used, and choosing the wrong one is the most common reason an image is blurry, oversized or missing its transparent background. The short version: JPG for photos, PNG for graphics, screenshots and anything transparent. Here’s why, and what to do when you have the wrong one.

The key difference: lossy vs lossless

JPG (also written JPEG; they’re the same format) is lossy. When it saves, it discards fine detail the eye is unlikely to notice, which is how a 12-megapixel photo fits in a few megabytes. You choose how much to discard with a quality setting.

PNG is lossless. Every pixel is stored exactly, and opening and re-saving it never changes the image. That precision costs space on photos, but PNG compresses flat colour, text and sharp edges very efficiently.

PNG vs JPG at a glance

When to use JPG

• Photos of people, places, products and anything else from a camera.
• Uploads to forms and job or visa portals, which very often ask for JPG.
• Email attachments and sharing, where file size matters.

A quality between 75 and 85 is invisible to most people at normal viewing size and gives a far smaller file than the 95–100 many apps use.

When to use PNG

• Logos, icons and graphics with flat colour.
• Screenshots, diagrams and anything with text.
• Images that need a transparent background, such as a product cutout or a logo placed on a coloured page.
• Master copies you’ll keep editing, since PNG never degrades.

Which is smaller?

It depends entirely on the image. For a photo, a JPG is usually a fraction of the size of the same image as PNG. For a screenshot of a web page or a simple logo, PNG is often smaller than JPG, and sharper too. If you’re not sure, save both and compare: our image converter shows the size of each before you download.

Does converting between them change quality?

• JPG to PNG keeps the image exactly as it is now, but can’t restore detail the JPG already discarded. The file usually gets bigger, so only do it if you need transparency or lossless editing from here on.
• PNG to JPG makes photos much smaller, with a small loss you control through the quality setting. Any transparent areas are filled with a solid colour, usually white.

What about WebP and AVIF?

For websites, both newer formats beat the pair: WebP and AVIF are smaller than JPG for photos and smaller than PNG for most graphics, and both support transparency. Every current browser displays them. For sharing files with people and other software, JPG and PNG remain the safest choice. Our guide WebP vs AVIF vs JPEG vs PNG compares all four.

Frequently asked questions