HEIC to PNG

// When you want PNG instead of JPG from a HEIC

HEIC is Apple's default iPhone camera format (High Efficiency Image Container), and most software outside the Apple ecosystem cannot open it. If you are converting anyway, PNG is the pick when the photo is headed into an editing pipeline: PNG is lossless, so nothing you do downstream stacks another round of compression damage on top of what HEIC already applied.

It is also the pick when the destination demands PNG specifically, which design tools, document systems, and some upload forms do. The trade is size. PNG files are usually a good deal larger than the HEIC they came from, because lossless encoding does not throw anything away.

// What actually happens during the conversion

Your browser cannot read HEIC on its own, so the tool loads a WebAssembly build of libheif, decodes the photo to raw pixels on your machine, and writes those pixels out as a PNG through a canvas. There is no quality slider because PNG has no quality dial; the output is a pixel-exact copy of what the decoder produced.

The canvas re-encode strips EXIF metadata, so GPS coordinates and camera details do not travel into the PNG. Treat that as a privacy feature or a limitation depending on your needs. Once the page has loaded, conversions run with no network connection at all.

// fair questions

Does the HEIC file leave my computer?

No. Decoding and encoding both happen inside your browser tab, so the conversion is entirely local and your photo never leaves your device. Nothing is transmitted, stored, or logged.

Why is the PNG so much bigger than my HEIC?

HEIC uses aggressive lossy compression, which is the whole reason Apple adopted it. PNG is lossless and keeps every pixel value, so the same photo takes considerably more space. That is expected, not a bug.

Does converting to PNG improve the photo quality?

No. Whatever detail HEIC compression discarded when the photo was taken is gone for good. PNG just guarantees no further loss happens from this point on, which matters if the image will be edited and re-saved.

Should I convert my iPhone photos to PNG or JPG?

JPG for sharing and storage, since files stay small and everything opens them. PNG for editing workflows or destinations that require it, accepting the larger file. If you just need the photo to open on Windows, JPG is usually enough.