What is a .png file?

You took a screenshot, saved a logo, or exported a graphic with a transparent background. It's a PNG. While JPG is for photos, PNG is for everything with sharp edges, flat colours, or transparency — which is why every icon, diagram, and UI element on the web is one.

PNG uses lossless compression, meaning every single pixel survives the save. No artefacts, no generational decay, no surprises. The format was created in 1996 as a patent-free replacement for GIF, and it succeeded beyond anyone's expectations. The tradeoff is file size: a PNG of a photograph will be several times larger than a JPG, because preserving every pixel costs bytes. That's not a flaw — it's the point.

Every device and browser opens PNG. For reducing file size without losing quality, tools like fwip can crush the metadata and optimise the compression. If you're saving a photo and don't need transparency, JPG will give you a much smaller file. For everything else — screenshots, text, logos, diagrams, anything with clean lines — PNG is the right call.