Will converting JPG to PNG improve the quality?

No. JPEG compression discarded detail permanently when the file was made. PNG stores what remains losslessly, artefacts and all, in a larger file. Only the original source can give you more quality.

Will the PNG have a transparent background?

No. JPEG carries no transparency, so there is nothing to convert. The background stays whatever colour it is - removing it is an editing job, not a conversion.

Why is the PNG so much bigger?

PNG is lossless and designed for flat colour and sharp edges. A photograph is continuous gradient, which it compresses poorly, and it must also store every JPEG artefact faithfully.

Are my images uploaded?

No. Decoding and encoding use your browser own image support, so the file never leaves the machine and there is no upload to wait for.

A Convertio alternative for JPG to PNG, and a warning about it

This is the one conversion most often done for a reason that does not hold. People convert a JPEG to PNG expecting to get quality back, or to get a transparent background. Neither happens, and it is worth five seconds of reading before you spend the bytes.

Open the JPG to PNG Converter →

Convertio and Softland, side by side

	Convertio	Softland
Where the file is converted	Uploaded to their servers	In your browser
Recovering JPEG quality	Not possible - nor anywhere else	Not possible, and the page says so
Resulting file size	Larger than the JPEG	Larger than the JPEG
Several files at once	Yes	Yes, locally
Other formats	Hundreds of them	PNG, JPEG and WebP

PNG cannot recover what JPEG threw away

JPEG compression is lossy and permanent. When the file was created, detail was discarded - fine texture, sharp edges, subtle gradients - and the artefacts around high-contrast boundaries were baked into the pixels that remain. Converting to a lossless format preserves those pixels perfectly, artefacts included. It does not reconstruct anything, because the information to reconstruct it from no longer exists in the file.

So a JPEG converted to PNG is a larger file containing exactly the same picture. If someone has asked you for a higher quality version, the answer is the original source file, not a conversion of the compressed one. This is the single most common misunderstanding about image formats and it costs people a lot of disk space.

Nor does it create transparency

PNG supports an alpha channel; JPEG does not. That means a JPEG has no transparency information to carry across, so the converted PNG has a fully opaque background of whatever colour was in the photograph - usually white, which looks transparent against a white page and stops looking transparent the moment it is placed on anything else.

Removing a background is a separate operation entirely: something has to decide which pixels are subject and which are backdrop, and that is image editing rather than format conversion. Convert first if you need PNG for another reason, then remove the background in a tool built for it.

When converting to PNG is the right call

There are good reasons. A system that only accepts PNG uploads. A design tool or print workflow that wants lossless input. An image you are about to edit repeatedly, where each re-save as JPEG would compound the compression - converting once to PNG stops that generation loss even though it cannot undo what already happened.

Screenshots, diagrams, logos and anything with text or flat colour genuinely belong in PNG, and if one of those reached you as a JPEG then converting is a repair rather than a waste - the file will be larger, and it will stop getting worse every time it is edited and saved.

When Convertio is the better choice

Your source is something a browser cannot decode - HEIC from a phone, a camera RAW file, a PSD.
You need an output format browsers cannot write, such as PDF, TIFF or ICO.
You are converting a large batch and would rather a server did the work.

Frequently asked questions

Will converting JPG to PNG improve the quality?: No. JPEG compression discarded detail permanently when the file was made. PNG stores what remains losslessly, artefacts and all, in a larger file. Only the original source can give you more quality.
Will the PNG have a transparent background?: No. JPEG carries no transparency, so there is nothing to convert. The background stays whatever colour it is - removing it is an editing job, not a conversion.
Why is the PNG so much bigger?: PNG is lossless and designed for flat colour and sharp edges. A photograph is continuous gradient, which it compresses poorly, and it must also store every JPEG artefact faithfully.
Are my images uploaded?: No. Decoding and encoding use your browser own image support, so the file never leaves the machine and there is no upload to wait for.

Try it yourself

Convert JPG photos to lossless PNG.

Open the JPG to PNG Converter

Convertio is a trademark of its respective owner. Softland is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Convertio. This comparison reflects how each product works rather than what either costs, because pricing and plan limits change; check Convertio’s own site for its current terms.