What is a PNG file?
PNG keeps your picture exactly as you made it, with nothing thrown away and see-through areas staying see-through. It is the safe choice for logos, icons, screenshots and anything you will edit again later. The trade is size: photos come out much bigger than they would as JPG. You can convert PNG files here, both into the format and out of it.
Specification
| Full name | Portable Network Graphics |
|---|---|
| Extensions | .png |
| Media type | image/png |
| Compression | Lossless |
| Transparency | Supported |
| Animation | Not supported |
| Multiple pages | — |
| Colour depth | Up to 16 bits per channel, 48-bit colour |
| Size limits | — |
| Introduced | 1996 |
| Developed by | PNG Development Group / W3C |
| Standard | Open |
| Browser support | Every browser, including older ones |
What PNG is used for
- Screenshots, where the text has to stay sharp
- Logos and icons that need a transparent background
- Source images kept for further editing
- Charts, diagrams and line art with flat colour areas
Strengths and limitations
What PNG does well
- Nothing is ever thrown away, so re-saving never degrades the picture
- Smooth, partial transparency rather than hard on-or-off edges
- Supported by every browser, operating system and image editor
Where PNG falls short
- Photos come out far larger than they would as JPG or WebP
- No native animation support outside the rarely used APNG extension
- Encoding at maximum compression is slow on large images
Convert PNG to
Every target this format can be written out as, each on its own page.
Convert to PNG
Everything that can be turned into a PNG file.
Tools that accept PNG
Questions about PNG
What is a .png file?
PNG keeps your picture exactly as you made it, with nothing thrown away and see-through areas staying see-through. The extension .png identifies it, and its media type is image/png.
How do I open a PNG file?
Any current browser will open it directly, so dragging the file into a tab is usually enough. Most operating systems also preview it without extra software.
Is PNG lossy or lossless?
Lossless. Nothing is discarded, so repeated saves never degrade the contents.
What is PNG good for?
Nothing is ever thrown away, so re-saving never degrades the picture. Smooth, partial transparency rather than hard on-or-off edges. Supported by every browser, operating system and image editor. In practice that makes it a good fit for screenshots, where the text has to stay sharp, and Logos and icons that need a transparent background.
What are the drawbacks of PNG?
Photos come out far larger than they would as JPG or WebP. No native animation support outside the rarely used APNG extension. Encoding at maximum compression is slow on large images.