Which format, and why.
For most images on the web, use WebP: Google's own comparison found lossy WebP 25 to 34 percent smaller than JPEG at equal quality, and it keeps transparency. This guide compares eight formats and says what each one is for.
A short, opinionated reference. The honest summary: use WebP unless something stops you.
Screenshots, logos, diagrams, anything with transparency.
Lossless, so it never degrades and never introduces the smeared halos JPEG leaves around sharp edges. The cost is size: a photograph saved as PNG is typically several times larger than the same photograph as WebP.
Avoid forPhotographs, unless you specifically need a lossless master.
Photographs that have to open anywhere, including on old software.
The universal format. Lossy, and lossy again every time you re-save, so keep an original and export copies rather than editing a JPEG repeatedly. No transparency at all — a transparent area becomes whatever background you pick.
Avoid forScreenshots, logos, line art, or anything with hard edges and flat color.
Almost everything on the web.
Smaller than JPEG at matching quality: Google’s own comparison found lossy WebP files 25 to 34 percent smaller. Unlike JPEG it keeps transparency, and every current browser displays it. Safari on a Mac, iPhone or iPad cannot write it itself, so File4Edit uses its own WebP encoder there, downloaded the first time you save a WebP. If you have no specific reason to choose otherwise, choose this.
Avoid forSending a file to someone who will open it in older desktop software.
When you want the smallest file and control the browsers.
The most efficient of the widely supported formats, often smaller than WebP at the same quality. Every current browser displays AVIF, but none can write it with its own encoder, and File4Edit has no AVIF encoder of its own, so it can open AVIF but cannot produce it.
Avoid forAnything you need to create in File4Edit, which cannot write it.
Almost nothing, now.
Limited to 256 colors, which makes photographs look banded, and its compression is worse than PNG for the flat graphics it handles well. Animation was its one advantage and video formats do that better. Converting an animated GIF keeps only its first frame; the Animate and Video frames tools write animated GIFs. A GIF written here keeps fully transparent areas, but GIF has no partial transparency, so soft edges are blended onto a solid color.
Avoid forPhotographs, gradients, and anything where WebP is an option.
Old Windows software that refuses everything else.
Uncompressed, so a modest image becomes a very large file. It exists here because occasionally a piece of industrial or embedded software will accept nothing else.
Avoid forEverything else.
Browser tab icons and Windows shortcuts.
A container rather than a compression format — it holds several sizes of the same icon in one file, and the system picks whichever it needs. The favicon generator builds a correct one automatically.
Avoid forAny use that is not an icon.
Documents, printing, and anything that must paginate.
Not an image format but a document format, which is why it gets its own tools here. Images become pages; pages can be rasterized back into images at whatever resolution you need.
Avoid forAnything that will be displayed inline on a web page.
File4Edit can also read SVG, TIFF and HEIC, but cannot write them. HEIC opens in every browser: Safari decodes it natively, and elsewhere a decoder loads the first time a HEIC arrives. What is a HEIC file?
WebP, unless something specific stops you. Google's comparison found lossy WebP files 25 to 34 percent smaller than JPEGs of equal measured quality. WebP keeps transparency the way PNG does, and every current browser displays it. Use PNG for screenshots, logos and line art that must stay lossless, and JPEG when the file has to open in older desktop software.
AVIF often gives smaller files than WebP at similar quality, and every current browser can display it. The catch is making it: encoding is slow, and no browser's built-in encoder can write AVIF yet, while File4Edit has none of its own, so it opens AVIF files but cannot save them. For images made in a browser today, WebP is the practical choice.
It can open them but not write them. SVG, TIFF and HEIC are read-only in File4Edit: you can convert one into PNG, JPEG, WebP or another writable format, but you cannot save back to it. HEIC photos from an iPhone open in every modern browser.