Photograph settings from the start: quality 82, colour at 4:2:0, a sensible long edge, and the result measured.
A recipe for photographs
Photographs are what JPEG is good at, and the settings here lean into that. Colour is stored at half resolution, which the eye does not notice in continuous tone; the quality is 82, where most photographs stop changing visibly; and a PNG larger than 2,048 pixels on its long edge is brought down to that, since few screens show more.
A photo with no transparency has nothing for a matte or an edge repair to do, so those tabs are not shown. If your photo does have a transparent area — a cut-out portrait — they come back.
What to watch for
- Text or graphics laid over the photo soften first. For a poster or a meme, the screenshot page keeps colour at full resolution.
- The 2,048 px long edge is a suggestion for the web. Turn it off under Size for prints.
- Nothing from the PNG's metadata is carried over — no location, no camera fields.
Questions about photos
Why would a photo be a PNG at all?
Phone edits, screenshots of photos, exports from editing apps and some cameras' “lossless” modes all write PNG. For a photograph that is usually five to ten times the size it needs to be, which is what this page is for.
What settings does this page use?
Quality 82, colour at 4:2:0 (half resolution, which photographs hide well), the precision encoder with Huffman tables fitted to the picture, and a 2,048-pixel long edge when the PNG is larger. All of it is visible and changeable: the long edge under Size, the rest under Quality and Output.
Will the photo look different?
Slightly, by measurement; usually not to the eye at normal size. The page decodes the written JPG and prints its similarity to the PNG — 1.000 would be identical. For photographs at quality 82 it is typically well above 0.95. Compare JPG and PNG on the stage at 1:1 to judge for yourself.
Are progressive JPGs offered?
No. The precision encoder on this site writes baseline JPEG. Progressive files load as a blurry preview that sharpens, and they are often a little smaller; that encoder is not built yet, and the page does not pretend otherwise.
