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Image formats are a mess, and most of what's written about them is either marketing or a spec sheet. These are the answers we'd give a friend: what the format is, whether you should care, and how to get on with your day. One article per question — per device, per app, per format.
Latest
The most recent first, in case you've been here before.
Start here
If you've never heard of JPEG XL until a file landed on your desktop, these two answer the immediate question.
Opening a .jxl, device by device
Each system handles the format differently, so each one gets its own article: what works out of the box, what to install, and what to do when it still won't open.
Comparisons
The arguments people actually have when choosing a format — the newer ones with our own measurements.
Browsers
Whether a web page can show a .jxl depends entirely on the browser — and the answer changed in 2026.
Photo editors and tools
For when you want to make .jxl files, not just open them.
iPhone photos and HEIC
The single most common reason a photo refuses to open on a Windows PC. These four cover the format, the choice and the fix.
Practical
The ones that end with something fixed rather than something understood.
Which format should you actually use?
Most of the confusion around image formats comes from treating them as rivals when they answer different questions. The short version: JPG is what you send to other people, PNG is what you keep when every pixel matters, and JPEG XL is what you store when you want both — provided whatever opens it supports the format.
HEIC is the odd one out. It is the format an iPhone saves to by default, it compresses beautifully, and it is the single most common reason a photo refuses to open on a Windows machine. If a picture from a relative won't display, HEIC is the first thing to check.
| Format | Best for | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| JPG | Sending photos to anyone, anywhere | Lossy: quality degrades every time you re-save |
| PNG | Screenshots, logos, transparency | Much larger files than JPG for photographs |
| JPEG XL | Storing and archiving at high quality | Chrome, Firefox and Safari show it now; Edge and older software still don’t |
| HEIC | Saving space on an iPhone | Frequently unopenable on Windows and the web |
If you only remember one thing: converting a file never improves it. Convert to solve a compatibility problem, or to save space losslessly — not in the hope of a better picture.
Or skip the reading
Every guide here exists because somebody had a file they couldn't open. If that's you, the tools do the job in a couple of seconds and nothing you convert ever leaves your device.
Every article
All 26 articles on the blog, newest first.