Blog · Image format guides

Know the format before you convert the file.

Readable, practical guides to the origins, tradeoffs, compression behavior, and best uses of the image formats people meet every day.

JPEG

JPEG: the photographic workhorse of the web

JPEG made digital photography practical by throwing away visual detail the eye rarely notices. It is still the default format for photos, thumbnails, uploads, and camera exports.

3 min read · Format guide PNG

PNG: lossless pixels, transparency, and dependable screenshots

PNG keeps exact pixel values, supports alpha transparency, and works beautifully for screenshots, diagrams, icons, and graphics with hard edges.

3 min read · Format guide GIF

GIF: the tiny animated loop that outlived its limits

GIF is technically limited, but culturally powerful: an indexed-color format that became the web's shorthand for lightweight looping animation.

3 min read · Format guide WebP

WebP: Google's compact image format for modern pages

WebP was built for the web: smaller photo files than JPEG in many cases, lossless mode for graphics, alpha transparency, and animation in one format.

3 min read · Format guide AVIF

AVIF: AV1 compression packed into still images

AVIF packages AV1-coded image data inside the ISO base media file family, giving still images advanced compression, alpha, wide color, and HDR options.

3 min read · Format guide HEIC / HEIF

HEIC and HEIF: efficient phone photos with a container mindset

HEIF is a flexible image container; HEIC commonly means HEIF images compressed with HEVC. It saves space on phones but often needs conversion for older workflows.

3 min read · Format guide SVG

SVG: images drawn with geometry instead of pixels

SVG is a vector format: it describes shapes, text, gradients, and paths rather than storing a fixed pixel grid. That makes it perfect for icons and diagrams.

3 min read · Format guide TIFF

TIFF: the flexible archive format for scans and production images

TIFF is a flexible, tag-based image container prized for scans, archives, prepress, and workflows that need high bit depth or lossless storage.

3 min read · Format guide BMP

BMP: simple Windows bitmaps and why they are still around

BMP is straightforward and often bulky: a Windows bitmap format that stores pixels with minimal complexity and broad legacy support.

3 min read · Format guide ICO

ICO: the multi-size icon container behind favicons

ICO is a container for small icon images at multiple sizes. It is old, specialized, and still useful for favicons and Windows desktop icons.

3 min read · Format guide PDF

PDF: a document format that carries images with intent

PDF is not a simple image format. It is a page description format that can package images, text, vector art, fonts, metadata, and print intent.

3 min read · Format guide RAW / DNG

RAW and DNG: sensor data before the camera bakes the photo

RAW files keep camera sensor data and metadata before final processing. DNG is Adobe's openly documented raw container for long-term interchange.

3 min read · Format guide Base64

Base64 image data URLs: pixels turned into text

Base64 is an encoding, not an image format. It turns binary image bytes into safe text that can be embedded in HTML, CSS, JSON, or test fixtures.

3 min read · Format guide STL

STL: triangle meshes for 3D printing and simple reliefs

STL is a 3D mesh format, not a normal image format. It represents surfaces as triangles, which makes it useful for 3D printing and heightmap experiments.

3 min read · Format guide GLB / glTF

GLB and glTF: the web's portable 3D asset package

glTF is a modern 3D asset format from Khronos. GLB is its binary package form, bundling geometry, materials, textures, and scene data into one file.

3 min read · Format guide JPEG XL

JPEG XL: a modern image format built for quality and migration

JPEG XL is a modern image codec from the JPEG standards family, designed for high quality, efficient compression, wide color, animation, and smooth migration from JPEG.

3 min read · Format guide