When PNG is the right choice
PNG is a lossless format. Save it, open it, save it again, and the pixels never change. That makes it the safe middle step for anything you’re going to work on rather than just look at:
- Photo editing and retouching. Repeatedly saving a JPG piles up compression artefacts. A PNG master doesn’t degrade.
- Design tools. Figma, Canva, Keynote and most slide or layout apps accept PNG without fuss, while HEIC support is patchy.
- Screenshots and interface shots. Text and interface edges stay razor sharp, with none of the smudging JPG adds around lettering.
- Cut-outs with transparency. If your image has an alpha channel, PNG keeps the see-through areas.
If you just want to send a photo to someone, HEIC to JPG is the better fit. It’s far smaller and opens everywhere.
A word about file size
Be ready for big files. PNG compresses losslessly, which works brilliantly on flat colours and terrible on the fine noise and texture of a real photo. Here’s roughly what to expect from the same 12 MP iPhone shot:
| Format | Relative size | Lossless? |
|---|---|---|
| HEIC (original) | Smallest | No |
| JPG at quality 88 | About 1.5 to 2 times the HEIC | No |
| PNG | Many times the HEIC | Yes |
Converting a whole holiday to PNG can fill a drive surprisingly fast. If you need the pixels but not the full resolution, run the photos through Resize HEIC first and pick a preset like 2560 or 1920 pixels.
Transparency: the thing only PNG does here
Most iPhone photos are fully opaque, so there’s nothing to keep. But HEIC and HEIF can carry an alpha channel, and some apps use it when you lift a subject off its background. JPG has no transparency at all and would fill those areas with a solid colour. PNG keeps them exactly as they are, ready to drop onto a slide or a poster.
Colour and metadata
iPhone photos use the Display P3 colour space. The PNG gets that colour profile embedded, so colours match your phone in modern apps. If a design tool shows them dull, switch Colour to sRGB before converting. By default the date and camera details are kept and the GPS location is dropped.
Private, even for client work
Design and editing jobs often involve photos that aren’t yours to share. Nothing is uploaded here: a WebAssembly build of libheif decodes each file inside your browser tab. Disconnect from the internet after the page loads and it carries on converting. If you work in Adobe apps, see converting HEIC for Photoshop too.