FormatDrop
Image Format

PNG

Portable Network Graphics

PNG is the lossless image format that replaced GIF in 1996 — it supports true colour, transparency, and exact pixel reproduction. It's the right format for logos, screenshots, icons, and anything with sharp edges or text. The downside is file size: a PNG photo can be 10× larger than a JPG. Knowing when to use PNG and when not to saves significant storage and bandwidth.

What is PNG?

PNG (Portable Network Graphics) was designed in 1995 as a patent-free replacement for the GIF format, which had a licensing controversy around its use of the LZW compression algorithm. PNG uses the DEFLATE compression algorithm (same as ZIP and gzip), which is lossless — every pixel is stored and reproduced exactly. The PNG specification was formally approved as ISO/IEC 15948 in 2004. PNG's defining feature is its alpha channel — a fourth channel alongside Red, Green, and Blue that stores transparency information for every pixel. This allows images with partially transparent edges (anti-aliased logos, drop shadows, glass effects) to be stored correctly and overlaid on any background colour. JPG has no alpha channel at all; GIF supports only binary transparency (a pixel is either transparent or not, with no partial transparency). PNG supports bit depths from 1-bit (binary) to 16-bit per channel, giving it exceptional support for high-colour accuracy. Unlike JPG, PNG is a lossless format: saving a PNG doesn't degrade quality regardless of how many times you re-save it. PNG is the dominant format for screenshots (operating systems save screenshots as PNG by default), user interface graphics, digital art, and any image that will be edited multiple times. The limitation: PNG's lossless compression is not as space-efficient as JPG's lossy compression for photographic content. A photograph saved as PNG is typically 5–10× larger than the same image saved as JPG at high quality, making PNG impractical for large photo libraries or web pages with many photographs.

PNG pros and cons

Advantages

  • Completely lossless — perfect pixel reproduction with no quality degradation
  • Full alpha channel transparency support (including partial transparency)
  • Universal compatibility — supported by every piece of software ever made
  • 16-bit depth option for high-colour accuracy and gradients
  • No generation loss — re-saving multiple times doesn't degrade quality
  • Best format for screenshots, logos, icons, and images with text

Limitations

  • Large file sizes — photos are 5–10× larger than equivalent JPG
  • No animation support (use APNG for animated PNG or WebP for efficiency)
  • Overkill for photographs where JPG achieves nearly identical perceptual quality at 1/10 the size
  • PNG compression is slow relative to JPG — slower to encode and decode
  • Not ideal for web delivery of photos (WebP is 30% smaller with similar lossless quality)

When should you convert PNG files?

Convert JPG to PNG when you need a lossless copy that won't degrade on future re-saves, need to add a transparent background, or are working with screenshots and UI graphics. Convert PNG to JPG when you need smaller file sizes and your image is photographic without transparency. Convert PNG to WebP for web delivery — WebP lossless is 26% smaller than PNG. Convert PNG to SVG for logos and simple graphics that need to scale to any size.

Convert PNG files

PNG→JPG
PNG→WEBP
PNG→PDF
PNG→SVG
PNG→ICO
JPG→PNG

All FormatDrop conversions run entirely in your browser — no file upload, no server processing. Your files stay on your device.

PNG FAQ

Does PNG support transparency?
Yes — PNG has a full alpha channel that supports partial transparency. Each pixel can have any transparency value from 0% (fully opaque) to 100% (fully transparent), including any value in between. This is called 8-bit or 16-bit alpha transparency, and it enables smooth anti-aliased edges, drop shadows, and glass effects that work on any background colour. This is a key advantage over JPG (no transparency) and GIF (only binary on/off transparency).
Why is my PNG file so large?
PNG uses lossless compression — every pixel is stored exactly. For photographs (which have complex colour variation in every pixel), lossless compression can't achieve much reduction. A 12MP photo might be 25 MB as PNG, 4 MB as JPG at high quality, or 3 MB as WebP. PNG's large size for photos is the format working correctly; the tradeoff is that every pixel is mathematically preserved. For screenshots and graphics with flat colours and text, PNG compresses very well.
What's the difference between PNG and PNG-8?
Standard PNG (PNG-24) stores up to 16.7 million colours per pixel with full 8-bit alpha transparency. PNG-8 is a colour-indexed variant that stores only up to 256 colours (like GIF) with a colour palette, resulting in much smaller files. PNG-8 is useful for simple graphics, icons, and illustrations with limited colours. For photographs and images with many colours, PNG-8 introduces visible colour banding. Photoshop and many image editors offer PNG-8 as a Save for Web option.

More formats

HEICWebPAVIFEPUBWebMOpusMP3WAVM4AFLACAACMP4AVIMKVMOVJPGGIFSVGTIFFICOBMPEPSARWOGGWMVPPTXPagesPDFDOCXRAWHEVCH.264AIFFM4VWMA3GPDNGRTFPSDOGVTSFLVAIXLSXCSVZIPAPNGMIDIJPEG XLMPG/MPEGVOBM2TSAC3ALACDTSJP2HEIFAPECBZ3G2SRTDOCPPTXLSODTODSM3URAR7ZM4BAMRTXTMOBITARGZJSONXMLYAMLKEYMTSCR2NEFMXFTGACAFASSVTTDSFRMF4VWVASFRMVBORFRW2EAC-3TTAISODMGXZDjVuFB2AUM4RAZW3MKAEXRVCFICSAAXPRCMP2SPXXSPFM3U8