When PNG to JPG makes sense
Choose JPG for anything that looks like a photograph: camera pictures, scanned photos, phone screenshots of photos, or AI generated images saved as PNG. These shrink a lot.
Stay with PNG for images with sharp edges and flat colors, such as logos, diagrams, charts or screenshots full of small text. JPG can add slight blur or speckles around text and lines.
A simple test: convert one file at 92%, zoom in on the text or edges, and check that it still looks clean.
Why are some PNG photos so heavy? PNG keeps every pixel exactly, including camera noise and fine texture, which is hard to pack tightly. JPG is built for that kind of detail. It smooths away tiny differences your eyes barely notice, and that is where the big savings come from.
What happens to transparency?
JPG has no transparent pixels. FileKiwi fills any transparent area with white, which suits documents, forms and most white web pages.
If you need a different background color, remove or replace the background with the white background tool. If you need to keep transparency, stay with PNG and use Compress PNG to reduce its size instead.
A white fill is usually what you want for passport style photos, signatures and product images going onto a white page. It is a poor fit for a logo meant to sit on a dark banner, where a white box would show.
Hitting a file size limit
Many upload portals cap images at a set size. Converting PNG to JPG is often enough on its own. If the file is still too big:
- Lower the quality slider a step and convert again.
- Reduce the pixel size with Resize Image. A 4000 pixel wide photo is rarely needed for a form.
- For an exact target, use a size preset such as compress image to 100 KB.
