PNG vs JPG: Which Format Should You Actually Use?
The rule of thumb that covers almost every case: photos → JPG, everything else → PNG. Here’s why, and the exceptions worth knowing.
| JPG | PNG | |
|---|---|---|
| Compression | Lossy (discards detail) | Lossless (exact pixels) |
| Transparency | None | Full alpha channel |
| Best for | Photos, natural images | Screenshots, logos, text, UI |
| Typical photo size | Small (≈ 600 KB) | Large (≈ 4 MB) |
| Text edges | Slightly fuzzy | Perfectly crisp |
How they differ under the hood
JPG uses lossy compression built for photographs — it discards fine detail the eye barely registers, which is why a photo can shrink 80% with no visible change. PNG is lossless: every pixel is preserved exactly, which keeps hard edges (text, logos, UI screenshots) perfectly crisp but produces much larger files for photos.
When JPG wins
Anything that came out of a camera: portraits, landscapes, product shots. Smooth gradients and natural textures hide JPG’s compression completely. At 85–90% quality, a 4 MB PNG photo becomes a 600 KB JPG that looks identical.
When PNG wins
Screenshots with text (JPG makes text edges fuzzy), logos and diagrams with flat colors, and anything needing transparency — JPG has no transparent pixels at all. If you convert a transparent PNG to JPG, the transparent areas must be filled with a solid color.
The email and web angle
Web pages and emails load faster with smaller images, and photo-heavy PNGs are the most common accidental bloat. If a photo somehow became a PNG (screenshots of photos are the classic case), converting it to JPG is usually the single biggest size win available.
Questions people ask
Is converting JPG to PNG ever useful?
Rarely for quality — the JPG’s lost detail doesn’t come back. It’s useful only when a system demands PNG or you need to add transparency in an editor.
What about WebP?
WebP beats both for web delivery but has compatibility gaps outside browsers — convert to PNG or JPG when a tool refuses it.