PNG as a stable working copy of an AVIF image
AVIF, the AV1-based image format released by the Alliance for Open Media in 2019, is built for delivery: it gets an image to a browser in as few bytes as possible. That’s ideal for a web page, less so when the image is the start of a project. Older apps and many upload forms don’t accept AVIF, and re-saving to a lossy format stacks compression on compression.
PNG avoids both problems. It opens in virtually every editor, design tool and document program, and it is lossless — once your AVIF is a PNG, you can crop, annotate and re-save as often as you like without it getting worse. That makes PNG the sensible choice for:
- editing an AVIF you saved from a website or received from someone else;
- archiving images in a long-established, widely supported format;
- handing graphics with transparent backgrounds to a designer or a layout tool;
- screenshots, charts and diagrams where text and thin lines need to stay crisp.
How to convert AVIF files to PNG
- Add the AVIF images. Drag them onto the converter above, drop a folder (subfolders included), or paste from the clipboard. Up to 500 files go in one batch.
- Select PNG. There is no quality setting to worry about: PNG output is lossless.
- Choose a size, if you want one. Original size is the default; you can also cap the long edge at 4096, 2560, 1920 or 1280 px.
- Collect the files. Use each file’s Save link or “Download all (ZIP).”
cutout.avifbecomescutout.png, and repeated names get “ (2)”.
Alpha channels come through intact
AVIF supports transparency, and so does PNG. When you convert, transparent backgrounds stay transparent and semi-transparent pixels — feathered edges, drop shadows, glass and glow effects — keep their partial opacity. A product cutout or logo will still sit cleanly on top of whatever background you place it on later.
That’s the main practical difference from AVIF to JPG: JPG has no transparency, so the same image would be flattened onto white.
The file-size trade-off
| AVIF | PNG | JPG | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Compression | Usually lossy (lossless possible) | Lossless | Lossy |
| Transparency | Yes | Yes | No |
| Size for a typical photo | Smallest | Largest | In between |
| Best suited to | Delivering images on the web | Editing, archiving, graphics | Sharing photos widely |
Because AVIF is so efficient and PNG keeps every pixel exactly, a photo can grow to many times its AVIF size once converted. Graphics with flat colors grow far less. If the PNG is too big for your purpose, cap the long edge at 2560, 1920 or 1280 px — halving the width and height leaves a quarter of the pixels. If you don’t need transparency or further editing, JPG is the smaller choice.
High bit depth and HDR: what to expect
AVIF can hold 10 or 12 bits per color channel and HDR brightness. The PNG produced here uses 8 bits per channel at standard dynamic range: HDR highlights are mapped down, the extra precision isn’t kept, and how the brightest areas are mapped depends on your browser’s decoder. Very smooth gradients can occasionally show faint banding after the reduction to 8 bits.
Standard-range images, which is most of what you’ll come across, show no visible change. If the HDR version matters, keep the original AVIF: the PNG is a lossless copy of the standard-range image, not of the HDR data.
Metadata, color and browser support
- EXIF: if the AVIF carries photo info (date taken, camera, exposure, GPS location), it’s kept by default and stored in the PNG’s standard eXIf chunk. Some older viewers ignore that chunk. The orientation tag is reset to normal; you can remove only the GPS location, or untick “Keep photo info” to drop everything.
- Color: your browser’s decoder converts the AVIF to sRGB before it’s written to PNG, so the result looks consistent in ordinary viewers.
- Decoder: AVIF is read by the decoder built into your browser, so no extra download is needed. A browser too old to read AVIF gets a clear error asking for an update instead of a broken file.
- Browsers: recent Chrome, Edge and Firefox, and Safari 16.4 or later on Mac, iPhone and iPad.
Skip the conversion when…
- You’re hoping to recover quality. A lossy AVIF’s softness or smoothing is copied into the PNG as it is. Lossless means nothing new is lost, not that lost detail comes back.
- You just need a small file to email or upload. Use JPG, or keep the AVIF if the destination accepts it.
- The AVIF is animated. You’ll get a single still image; the animation isn’t preserved.
- You have more than 500 files. Run several batches — the cap keeps your browser’s memory use in check.
- You’re assembling a document. JPG to PDF takes AVIF directly and builds one PDF.
Confirming your files stay local
Conversion happens entirely inside this browser tab; nothing is uploaded. The page’s Content-Security-Policy allows network connections only to pd00.com and to Cloudflare’s anonymous, cookieless visit counter — which gets page views, never images — so your browser blocks every other destination. To see it for yourself, open DevTools → Network and convert a file — the privacy page lists the exact steps. After the page has loaded, you can disconnect from the internet and keep converting.