How to Convert Images Between PNG, JPG, and WEBP
My cousin was applying for a government job online and the form only accepted JPG photos under 100KB. He had a PNG screenshot of his ID card that was 2.4MB. He called me asking how to “make it JPG.” He’s not a tech person — he just needed the thing to work.
I’ve been in this situation more times than I can count. Upload a photo somewhere and it says “wrong format.” Your designer sends you a WEBP file and your old laptop can’t even open it. You screenshot something and it saves as PNG but the website wants JPG.
Here’s the quickest way I’ve found to convert between image formats without installing anything.
How to do it
1. Open the converter
Go to convertkr.com/image-convert. You’ll see a simple upload area. No account needed.
2. Drop your image
Drag your file in or click to browse. It accepts PNG, JPG, WEBP, HEIC, TIFF, BMP — basically anything.
3. Pick your output format
Three options: PNG, JPG, or WEBP. Click the one you need.
If you pick JPG or WEBP, you’ll also see a quality slider. For most things I keep it at 85-90. If file size matters more than quality (like my cousin’s situation), I drop it to 60-70.
4. Download
One click and you’ve got your converted image. No watermark, no “upgrade to premium” popup.
When to use which format
This confused me for a long time so here’s what I’ve figured out after dealing with images for years:
JPG — use for photos. Your camera photos, product images, portraits. JPG compresses well and keeps photos looking good at small file sizes. But it doesn’t support transparency — if your image has a transparent background, JPG will fill it with white.
PNG — use for screenshots, logos, graphics with text, or anything that needs a transparent background. PNG files are bigger than JPG but they don’t lose quality. Every time you save a JPG it loses a tiny bit of detail. PNG doesn’t do that.
WEBP — use for websites. WEBP gives you smaller files than both JPG and PNG with almost no visible quality loss. If you run a website or blog and want faster loading, convert your images to WEBP. Most browsers support it now except some really old ones.
Real situations where I needed this
Government forms that only accept JPG. This happens all the time in Pakistan. NADRA forms, university applications, job portals — they all want JPG under a certain size. My cousin’s case was just one of many. I’ve helped at least 5 people with this exact problem.
A friend’s online store. He was uploading product photos as PNG files and his Shopify page was loading really slow. I converted all his images from PNG to WEBP and the page speed went from 4 seconds to 1.5 seconds. He didn’t even know WEBP existed.
Logo with transparent background. I designed a simple logo in Canva and downloaded it as JPG by mistake. The transparent background turned white. Had to go back and get the PNG version. Now I always download logos as PNG.
WhatsApp compresses everything. Someone sent me a document scan over WhatsApp and the quality was terrible. I asked them to email me the original PNG instead. Lesson learned — for anything important, don’t send it through WhatsApp.
Common mistakes
Converting JPG to PNG doesn’t improve quality. I see people do this thinking “PNG is better quality so if I convert my blurry JPG to PNG it’ll look better.” It won’t. Once quality is lost in JPG compression, converting to PNG just makes the file bigger without making it clearer. You can’t un-blur an image by changing the format.
Don’t use PNG for photos. A photo saved as PNG can be 5-10x larger than the same photo as JPG, with no visible difference. I once saw someone’s portfolio website loading 8MB PNG photos. Switching to JPG brought it down to 800KB. Same photos, looked identical.
HEIC from iPhones. If you have an iPhone, your photos are probably in HEIC format. Most Windows PCs and websites don’t support HEIC directly. Convert to JPG before sharing with Android or Windows users. I’ve had this problem when a friend sent me iPhone photos and I couldn’t open them on my laptop.
FAQ
Will converting reduce the image quality?
Converting to JPG or WEBP involves some compression, so there’s a tiny quality loss — but at 85-90% quality, you won’t notice it. Converting to PNG is lossless, meaning zero quality loss.
Is there a file size limit?
No hard limit. Since everything processes in your browser, it depends on your device’s memory. I’ve converted 20MB photos without any issues on my laptop.
Can I convert multiple images at once?
The web tool handles one at a time right now. If you need batch conversion, the ConvertKr Desktop app is better for that — it’s free too.
Do you store my images?
No. Everything happens in your browser. Your images never leave your device. I built it this way on purpose because I wouldn’t want my own photos sitting on someone else’s server.
Need to convert an image right now? Open the image converter — takes a few seconds.