Convert JPG to PNG
Convert JPG images to PNG free, in your browser.
Change the format. Drop an image, a PDF or a Word document.
- JPG · PNG · WebP · Text · Word
- Word
- PDF · Text
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This conversion is asked for far more often than it helps, so it is worth saying plainly: it will not improve your photograph, and it will make the file several times larger. PNG cannot recover detail that a JPG already threw away. What it can do is stop any more being thrown away from here on.
That makes it the right move in two situations. The first is editing: if the picture is going to be cropped, colour-corrected and saved repeatedly, doing that in PNG means each save is exact rather than another round of JPG compression on top of the last. The second is a tool or a person that simply demands a PNG, which is common in print workflows and older content systems.
It is the wrong move if you were hoping for a cleaner image. The blocky edges around text, the mottling in a flat sky, the halo around a dark branch against bright cloud: all of that is now part of the picture, and PNG will store it perfectly forever. If the JPG looks poor, the fix is a better original, not a different container.
How to convert JPG to PNG
- Drop your JPG files onto the box above, or paste them with Ctrl+V.
- Save each file from its tile, or take them all at once.
JPG and PNG side by side
| JPG | PNG | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it came from | 1992, from the Joint Photographic Experts Group | 1996, designed as a free replacement for GIF |
| Throws detail away | Yes | No, every pixel is kept |
| Transparency | No | Yes |
| Where it opens | Everywhere, on everything, including hardware old enough to vote | Everywhere, without exception, since the late nineties |
| Best at | Photographs, and anything going somewhere you cannot predict | Screenshots, logos, diagrams and anything with text or hard edges in it |
More on choosing between JPG, PNG, WebP and AVIF.
Questions about JPG to PNG
Will converting to PNG improve the quality?
No. This is the single most common misunderstanding about the two formats. A JPG has already discarded detail permanently, and PNG has no way of knowing what was there before; it copies what it is given, exactly. The result is a larger file that looks identical, including all the compression artefacts, which it now preserves faithfully. If you want a better picture, you need the original the JPG was made from.
Why did the file get so much bigger?
Because you have moved from a format that compresses photographs aggressively to one that essentially does not. PNG compresses by finding repeated patterns, and photographs have almost none: every patch of sky is subtly different from the one beside it. Three to ten times the original size is ordinary. Worse, the JPG artefacts add fine noise that PNG finds even harder to compress, so a heavily compressed JPG can produce a bigger PNG than a clean one would.
Does the picture get a transparent background?
No. PNG is able to store transparency, but a JPG has none to give it, and converting cannot invent it. Every pixel arrives fully opaque, including the white background you may have been hoping to remove. Cutting a subject out of its background is an editing job that needs a decision about which pixels should go, and no format conversion will make it for you.
When should I do this rather than keep the JPG?
When the file is about to be edited and saved more than once, or when something downstream insists on PNG. Those are the two honest reasons. For sending, storing, uploading or putting on a web page, the JPG you already have is smaller and looks the same, and converting it achieves nothing except a heavier file to move around.