EPS vs PNG: format overview
Encapsulated PostScript
Adobe Systems · 1987
- Compression
- none
- Transparency
- No
- ✓ Resolution-independent vector graphics
- ✓ Industry standard for print production
- ✗ Not supported in web browsers
Portable Network Graphics
PNG Development Group (Thomas Boutell) · 1996
- Compression
- lossless
- Color depth
- 16-bit
- Transparency
- Yes
- ✓ Lossless compression — pixel-perfect quality
- ✓ Full alpha transparency (8-bit alpha channel)
PNG magic bytes: 89 50 4E 47 0D 0A 1A 0A
Why convert EPS to PNG?
EPS — Encapsulated PostScript — was the dominant format for vector artwork from the 1980s through the early 2000s. Design agencies, stock art vendors, and print studios distributed logos, illustrations, and clip art as EPS files throughout this era. Enormous archives of brand assets, purchased stock art, and agency-delivered artwork sit in EPS format on drives and email threads. The problem is that almost nothing in modern use reads EPS without effort: Figma does not import it, Sketch does not support it, web browsers cannot render it, and Windows has not shipped with a native EPS viewer since the removal of PostScript support in the OS.
Converting EPS to PNG produces a raster image that works everywhere — web browsers, social media, email, Google Docs, Microsoft Office, Canva, Figma as a placed image, Slack, and any CMS. PNG supports transparency, so logos with transparent backgrounds convert cleanly without a white box appearing around the artwork. For web use, this is the most common EPS workflow: take the agency-provided EPS logo, convert it to a high-resolution PNG with transparency, and use that PNG across all digital channels.
Export at high resolution — for a logo appearing at 400 pixels wide on screen, export at 1200 pixels wide minimum to stay sharp on Retina displays. Once converted to PNG, the file is raster and scaling it up will soften the edges. If you need a scalable format for future editing, convert to SVG instead, which preserves the vector paths.
Quality & file size: EPS to PNG
Typical sizes: EPS 50 KB–5 MB (logo); PNG 8–25 MB (12MP photo).
Both formats keep every pixel, so the PNG looks the same as the EPS.