Every time you save an image, you make a choice that affects file size, quality, and compatibility. JPG, PNG, and WebP are the three formats you will encounter most, and picking the wrong one is surprisingly easy to do.
The Short Answer
- JPG: photos and complex images where small file size matters
- PNG: logos, screenshots, graphics with text, anything needing a transparent background
- WebP: everything on the web, when you can use it
If you just need a quick answer, that list covers 95 percent of decisions. The rest of this article explains the reasoning behind each choice so you can handle the other 5 percent confidently.
JPG: Great for Photos, Bad for Text
JPG uses lossy compression. It permanently discards image data to make the file smaller. The compression is clever: it targets detail the human eye is less sensitive to, like subtle colour transitions in a blue sky or the texture of a wall in the background of a photo.
This makes JPG excellent for photographs where a little quality loss is invisible. A 4MB photo from your phone can become a 300KB JPG with no perceptible difference on screen. That is a reduction of over 90 percent with no visible cost.
Where JPG fails is sharp edges and text. The compression creates visible artefacts: blurry halos around letters, blocky patches in flat colour areas. If you save a logo as JPG, the edges of the letters will look slightly fuzzy. If you save a screenshot with text, the words will look soft rather than crisp.
JPG also does not support transparency. Every pixel must have a colour. If you need your image to sit on a coloured background without a white box around it, JPG is not the right format.
Use JPG for: photographs, product images, hero images, and any complex scene where transparency is not needed and file size matters.
PNG: Lossless and Transparent
PNG uses lossless compression. Every pixel is preserved exactly as it was in the original. The trade-off is larger file sizes, sometimes dramatically so. A photograph saved as PNG can be five to ten times larger than the same image saved as JPG.
PNG's most important feature is the alpha channel: full transparency support. Every pixel can be partially or fully transparent, which makes PNG the only sensible choice for logos, icons, and UI elements that need to sit on different backgrounds without a coloured border around them.
PNG also handles flat colours and sharp edges perfectly. A screenshot of a website or an application stays crisp with zero artefacts. Diagrams, charts, and illustrations with solid lines all look exactly as intended.
One common mistake is using PNG for photographs. Because the lossless compression struggles with the complex colour variation in photos, PNG files of photographs are enormous and offer no visual benefit over JPG. Only use PNG for photos if you absolutely need lossless quality or transparency.
Use PNG for: logos, icons, screenshots, graphics with text, diagrams, and anything that needs a transparent background.
WebP: The Modern Standard
WebP was developed by Google and released in 2010, but only became universally supported around 2020 when Safari added support. It combines the best of both formats.
- Supports both lossy and lossless compression
- Supports transparency like PNG
- Typically 25 to 35 percent smaller than equivalent JPG or PNG
- Supported by all modern browsers
For web use, WebP is almost always the right choice. The same image that takes 300KB as a JPG will often come in at 200KB as a WebP with identical visual quality. At scale, across a site with hundreds of images, that adds up to significantly faster page load times.
The only reason to avoid WebP is compatibility with older software. Some older image editors do not open WebP files natively. Some older email clients do not display them inline. If you are sending an image to someone who might open it in an old application, JPG or PNG is safer. For anything displayed in a web browser, WebP is the better choice.
Use WebP for: all web images, especially when page speed matters. Converting your existing JPG and PNG images to WebP is one of the easiest performance improvements you can make to a website.
Quick Comparison
| Format | Compression | Transparency | Best for | Browser support |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| JPG | Lossy | No | Photos | Universal |
| PNG | Lossless | Yes | Logos, UI, screenshots | Universal |
| WebP | Both | Yes | Everything web | All modern browsers |
What About GIF, SVG, and AVIF?
GIF is limited to 256 colours and produces large files for anything complex. Its only remaining use case is simple animations where wide compatibility is required. For most new projects, animated WebP or video is a better choice.
SVG is a vector format, not a raster format. It stores images as mathematical instructions rather than pixels, which means it scales to any size without quality loss. SVG is the right choice for icons, logos, and illustrations that need to look sharp at every size. It is not suitable for photographs or complex imagery.
AVIF is newer than WebP and compresses even better, often 50 percent smaller than JPG at equivalent quality. Browser support is still catching up, and encoding is slower than WebP. It is worth watching, but WebP is the safer choice for production use today.
How to Choose in Practice
If you are building a website, convert all photographs to WebP and all logos and icons to SVG or WebP with transparency. If you need to share an image with someone who might open it in any application, use JPG for photos and PNG for graphics. If someone asks for a logo file, send PNG unless they specifically ask for SVG.
The most common mistake is using the wrong format out of habit. Many people save everything as JPG because it is familiar, then wonder why their logo looks blurry or why their screenshot text is soft. Format choice takes five seconds and makes a visible difference.
Convert Between Formats
Need to switch formats? You can convert any image between JPG, PNG, and WebP instantly in your browser, with no software to install and no account required.