Is WebP always better than JPEG?

Smaller at the same visual quality, yes, typically by a substantial margin. Better overall only where it opens. On a web page you control, use WebP. For a file going to an upload form, an email attachment or someone else's software, JPEG's universal support is worth more than the bytes.

Why is my PNG photograph so large?

PNG is lossless, so it stores every pixel exactly. That is efficient for flat colour and sharp edges and very inefficient for the continuous gradients in a photograph. Use JPEG or WebP for photographs; PNG only when you need transparency or exact pixels.

Does converting between formats lose quality?

Converting to a lossy format (JPEG, WebP, AVIF, HEIC) discards detail, and doing it repeatedly compounds. Converting to a lossless format (PNG) preserves what is there but cannot recover what a previous lossy save already removed. Always convert from the original.

Should I use AVIF yet?

For photographs on a site you control, yes — support is broad and the compression is the best available. Keep a WebP or JPEG fallback if you serve a wide audience, and expect encoding to be noticeably slower.

What should I convert my iPhone photos to?

JPEG, unless you know the destination handles HEIC. The photograph converts faithfully; what does not survive is Live Photo motion, depth maps and Apple's edit history, which live in the HEIC container rather than in the image.

Which image format to actually use

Most image format advice is a feature table that leaves you no better off. The decision is simpler than it looks, because the formats divide cleanly by what they were designed to do. JPEG throws away detail to make photographs small. PNG keeps every pixel exactly and supports transparency, which makes it right for graphics and wrong for photographs. WebP and AVIF do both jobs better than either but are newer, so the question becomes where the image has to work. GIF is obsolete for everything except nostalgia. SVG is not a picture at all but a set of drawing instructions. Answer three questions — is it a photograph, does it need transparency, and where will it be opened — and the format picks itself.

The three questions

Is it a photograph or a graphic? Photographs have continuous gradients and no hard edges at the pixel level, which is exactly what lossy compression is built to exploit. Graphics — logos, screenshots, diagrams, text — have flat colour and sharp edges, which lossy compression turns into visible mush around every edge. This one question eliminates half the options.

Does it need transparency? If any part of the image must show what is behind it, JPEG is out entirely; it has no alpha channel and transparent areas will be flattened onto a background, usually white.

Where does it have to open? A web page, any modern browser, someone's ten-year-old desktop software, or a government upload form that accepts three formats. This is the question that overrides the other two, and the one people skip.

The photograph formats

JPEG is thirty years old and still the correct answer more often than any other format, because it opens everywhere without exception. It is lossy, and re-saving repeatedly compounds that loss, so keep an original. No transparency, no animation. If the destination is unknown, an upload form, or anything outside a browser, this is the safe choice.

WebP produces meaningfully smaller files than JPEG at comparable quality, supports transparency and animation, and works in every current browser. It is the sensible default for images on a web page you control. Outside browsers, support is patchier — some desktop and office software still refuses it, which is why it is a web format rather than a universal one.

AVIF compresses better still, especially at low file sizes and in gradients where JPEG shows banding, and handles wide colour and high dynamic range. Browser support is now broad. The trade is encoding time — AVIF is slow to produce compared with JPEG or WebP — and support outside browsers that is weaker than WebP's.

HEIC is what an iPhone produces by default. It compresses well, but support outside Apple's ecosystem is poor enough that it is a capture format rather than a sharing one. Converting to JPEG is the usual answer, and the thing to know is that Live Photo motion, depth data and edit history live in the HEIC container and do not survive.

The graphics formats

PNG is lossless with full alpha transparency. For logos, screenshots, diagrams, UI assets and anything containing text, it is correct: edges stay sharp and colours stay exact. Used on a photograph it produces a file several times larger than JPEG with no visible benefit, which is the single most common format mistake.

SVG stores drawing instructions rather than pixels, so it is resolution-independent: the same file is crisp on a watch and on a billboard, and it is usually tiny. It is right for logos, icons and diagrams that were drawn as vectors, and impossible for photographs. Converting a photograph to SVG does not vectorise it in any useful sense.

GIF is limited to 256 colours and is worse than PNG at everything except one thing: universally supported animation. Even there, an animated WebP or a short video file is smaller and better. Use it when something specifically requires GIF.

ICO exists for favicons and Windows icons and holds several sizes in one file. It is a packaging format, not a choice you make on quality grounds.

The compatibility trap

The most expensive format mistake is not choosing a slightly larger file. It is uploading an image the destination cannot read. Government portals, banking applications, job boards, university admissions systems and older enterprise software commonly accept only JPEG and PNG, and reject anything else with an unhelpful error.

The rule that avoids nearly all of this: you choose modern formats for images on a site you control, where you can measure the saving and control the browsers. For anything going to someone else's system, use JPEG for photographs and PNG for graphics. The bandwidth saved by being clever with a passport photograph upload is zero, and the cost of a rejected application is not.

Practical defaults

Photograph on your own web page: WebP, with AVIF if you can afford the encoding time and are serving many users. Photograph going anywhere else: JPEG. Logo, icon or diagram that exists as vector artwork: SVG. Screenshot, or any graphic containing text: PNG. Anything needing transparency where SVG is not possible: PNG, or WebP on the web.

Photograph from an iPhone that you need to send to somebody: convert to JPEG. Something that must animate and must work absolutely everywhere: GIF, reluctantly. Favicon: ICO, or SVG for modern browsers with an ICO fallback.

And whatever you choose, keep the original. Every lossy re-save compounds, and there is no way back to detail that has been discarded.

Last updated: 2026-08-07

Convert between image formats

29 format pairs, converted in your browser — nothing uploaded.

Frequently asked questions

Is WebP always better than JPEG?: Smaller at the same visual quality, yes, typically by a substantial margin. Better overall only where it opens. On a web page you control, use WebP. For a file going to an upload form, an email attachment or someone else's software, JPEG's universal support is worth more than the bytes.
Why is my PNG photograph so large?: PNG is lossless, so it stores every pixel exactly. That is efficient for flat colour and sharp edges and very inefficient for the continuous gradients in a photograph. Use JPEG or WebP for photographs; PNG only when you need transparency or exact pixels.
Does converting between formats lose quality?: Converting to a lossy format (JPEG, WebP, AVIF, HEIC) discards detail, and doing it repeatedly compounds. Converting to a lossless format (PNG) preserves what is there but cannot recover what a previous lossy save already removed. Always convert from the original.
Should I use AVIF yet?: For photographs on a site you control, yes — support is broad and the compression is the best available. Keep a WebP or JPEG fallback if you serve a wide audience, and expect encoding to be noticeably slower.
What should I convert my iPhone photos to?: JPEG, unless you know the destination handles HEIC. The photograph converts faithfully; what does not survive is Live Photo motion, depth maps and Apple's edit history, which live in the HEIC container rather than in the image.