PNG vs JPG: Which Should You Use After Upscaling?

Once you've upscaled an image, you'll usually be asked to choose an output format. The right choice depends less on personal preference and more on what's actually in the image.

The core difference

PNG is a lossless format — it preserves every pixel exactly as generated, with no compression artifacts, at the cost of a larger file size. JPG is lossy — it compresses the image by discarding some information, resulting in a much smaller file, but with some quality trade-off, especially around sharp edges and fine detail.

When PNG is the better choice

• Text or graphics — logos, screenshots, memes, quote images. JPG compression tends to create visible smudging around hard edges and text, which becomes more obvious once enlarged.
• Line art and illustrations — anime, manga, and vector-style art with flat colors and crisp outlines.
• Anything you'll edit further — if you're going to open the file again in an editor, starting from a lossless PNG avoids compounding compression artifacts.

When JPG makes more sense

• Photographs — natural photos with gradients and continuous tone generally compress well in JPG with minimal visible quality loss at a high quality setting.
• Sharing and uploading — social media, email, and most websites favor smaller JPG files, and many platforms compress uploads anyway, so starting smaller doesn't cost you much.
• Storage or bandwidth matters — if you're dealing with a large batch of images, JPG's smaller footprint adds up.

A simple rule of thumb

If your image has sharp edges, text, or flat color areas, choose PNG. If it's a natural photo you're going to share or upload somewhere that will likely compress it anyway, JPG is the more practical choice. When in doubt, PNG is the safer default — you can always convert down to JPG later, but you can't recover detail lost to JPG compression after the fact.