Converting HEIC without visible quality loss
Truly lossless is impossible between two lossy formats. Visually lossless is easy, and these are the settings that get you there.
What is actually lost
HEIC is lossy. Its encoder already discarded detail when the photo was taken. Converting to JPG decodes that approximation and then applies a second, different lossy compressor to it. You are not losing the original scene twice — that is gone, but you are adding a second layer of approximation on top of the first.
The good news is how small that second layer can be. At quality 92, a JPG made from a HEIC is perceptually indistinguishable from the HEIC under normal viewing. You can find differences by zooming to 400% and flicking between them, but nothing you would notice in a photo album, a print, or on a screen.
- Pick the right target format
PNG is mathematically lossless from the decoded pixels but produces enormous files. WebP at quality 90 or higher is visually lossless at a fraction of the size. JPG at 92–95 is fine and opens everywhere. Choose based on where the file is going, not on which sounds safest.
- Set quality to 92 or above for JPG
Below about 85 you start to see artefacts in skies, skin and smooth gradients. Above 95 the file grows quickly with no visible gain. 92 is the practical ceiling of usefulness for photographs.
- Do not resize unless you need to
Resizing discards pixels permanently. Keep the original dimensions when archiving. Resize only for a specific destination, and keep the full-size version as well.
- Convert once, from the original
Never convert a converted file. Each lossy encode compounds the damage. Always go back to the original HEIC rather than re-processing a JPG you made earlier.
Choosing a setting for the job
Rather than memorising numbers, pick by destination. The setting that matters is the one that survives what happens to the file next.
| Where the file is going | Setting | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| Archive alongside the original | 95 | You may crop or print from it years later |
| Print, A4 or larger | 92 | Print resolves more detail than a screen |
| Client or colleague by email | 90 | Clean at full size, still attachable |
| Social media upload | 85 | The platform re-compresses anyway |
| Gallery thumbnail on a site | 80 | Displayed small, so artefacts stay invisible |
Nothing above 95 is worth the bytes; the file grows sharply and no one can see the difference. Below 75 the damage shows in skies and skin before it shows anywhere else. If you want the measured file sizes behind these settings, they are tabulated on the quality page.
The one genuinely lossless route
Converting HEIC to PNG is lossless relative to the decoded image. Every pixel the decoder produces is stored exactly, and no further generation loss can occur however many times you edit and re-save. This is the right choice when a photo is heading into an editing pipeline that will save it repeatedly. It is the wrong choice for storage, because the files run ten to fifteen times larger than the HEIC.
The best quality strategy is not converting at all. Keep your originals as HEIC and convert copies on demand for whatever needs them. That way the archive stays compact and pristine, and no generation loss ever accumulates. Convert the twelve photos you are actually sending, not the four thousand you are storing.
Do not overlook the colour space
The most visible quality loss in HEIC conversion is usually not compression — it is colour. iPhone photos are typically Display P3, and a careless conversion to sRGB can flatten saturated reds and greens far more noticeably than any compression artefact. This page explains how to avoid it.
Common questions
- Is there a setting that avoids any loss at all?
- Only by changing target format. PNG stores the decoded pixels exactly, so nothing further is discarded, at the cost of a file roughly ten times larger. Every JPG setting, including 100, re-encodes.
- What JPG quality should I use for photographs?
- 92 for archiving or printing, 85 for sharing, 80 for web use. Above 95 the file grows sharply with no visible benefit; below 75 the artefacts become obvious in skies and smooth areas.
- Is PNG better than JPG for preserving quality?
- PNG stores the decoded pixels exactly, so no further loss can occur. But the file is around ten times larger than the HEIC and no visible detail is gained over a high-quality JPG.
- Does converting twice make it worse?
- Yes, noticeably. Each lossy encode compounds the previous one. Always convert from the original HEIC rather than re-processing a JPG you produced earlier.