Guides
Straight answers to the questions people arrive with: what went wrong, which format to pick, and what it costs you either way.
Describe the problem in your own words. You do not need to know what the format is called.
23 guides shown
Choosing a format
Which file type to use, and what those letters after the dot actually mean.
- How to make an image transparentUsually it means a clear background, sometimes a see-through picture. Both are easy, and both are undone by saving in the wrong format.
- Logo variations: the versions every brand needsA full color version, a white one, and a black one, at minimum. Which you need, what each is for, and how to make them from the logo you have.
- Raster vs vector: what is the difference?One stores pixels, the other stores instructions. That is why your logo goes fuzzy on a banner, and why the printer keeps asking for a file you do not have.
- PNG vs JPG: which should you use?Photographs are JPG, everything else is PNG, and the reason is one difference in how the two throw information away.
- RGB vs CMYK: which one do you actually need?One is light, the other is ink, and that single fact explains why the bright blue on your screen comes back from the printer looking flat.
- Which logo file types do you actually need?The honest list is shorter than the one you were sent. One vector master you can re-export from forever, plus exports for the places that will not take it.
- Grayscale vs black and white: what is the difference?Grayscale keeps hundreds of shades of gray. Black and white, taken strictly, keeps two and nothing in between. Almost everyone means the first, and the times they mean the second are the times it matters.
- Why won't my image upload?Ranked by how often each one is actually to blame, and the message on screen is frequently wrong about which of the five you have hit.
- What is a favicon?The small square in the tab, and the handful of files that cover everything asking for one. The hard part is not making them. It is that a logo stops being readable long before it gets that small.
- What is a WebP file?The format you did not ask for and cannot open. It is a real image format, it is usually the right one, and converting out of it takes a few seconds.
- SVG vs PNG: which should you use?One scales to a billboard without blurring and the other does not, but that only settles it for logos and icons. For a photograph the answer reverses completely.
- JPG vs JPEG: is there any difference?None at all. Same format, same file, different number of letters, and here is what is really wrong when a site rejects one and accepts the other.
Making files smaller
When a file is too big to upload, email, or load quickly enough.
- PNG vs JPG: which should you use?Photographs are JPG, everything else is PNG, and the reason is one difference in how the two throw information away.
- Grayscale vs black and white: what is the difference?Grayscale keeps hundreds of shades of gray. Black and white, taken strictly, keeps two and nothing in between. Almost everyone means the first, and the times they mean the second are the times it matters.
- Why won't my image upload?Ranked by how often each one is actually to blame, and the message on screen is frequently wrong about which of the five you have hit.
- How do I make a photo small enough to email?The published limit is not the real limit, and the quality slider will not get you under it. Reducing the dimensions will, every time.
- Does compressing an image reduce quality?Sometimes, and much less than you would guess. We measured it: the first save does nearly all the damage, and after that a JPEG stops degrading entirely.
- Why is my JPEG so big?Usually too many pixels, and often invisible sensor noise, which cost us five times the file size in testing. Ranked by how much each one actually costs.
- Is it better to resize or compress an image?We hit the same file size three different ways to find out. Resizing won every time, and at the tightest budget compression could not even reach the target.
Resizing and cropping
Changing the size or the shape of a picture without wrecking it.
- How to merge two photos into oneSide by side, or one on top of the other. Decide which you mean first, because they need different tools and give very different results.
- What is image resolution?It is the pixel count, not the DPI and not the file size. And there is no such thing as high resolution until you say what it is for.
- Raster vs vector: what is the difference?One stores pixels, the other stores instructions. That is why your logo goes fuzzy on a banner, and why the printer keeps asking for a file you do not have.
- What size should Etsy listing photos be?The number is the easy part. The part that costs sales is that the same photo is cropped three different ways depending on where a buyer sees it.
- How do I make a photo small enough to email?The published limit is not the real limit, and the quality slider will not get you under it. Reducing the dimensions will, every time.
- What is a favicon?The small square in the tab, and the handful of files that cover everything asking for one. The hard part is not making them. It is that a logo stops being readable long before it gets that small.
- What is aspect ratio?The shape of a picture, not its size, and the reason your photo came back with someone's head missing.
- Is it better to resize or compress an image?We hit the same file size three different ways to find out. Resizing won every time, and at the tightest budget compression could not even reach the target.
Showing your work
Presenting a product, a print or a design so someone can judge it.
- How to merge two photos into oneSide by side, or one on top of the other. Decide which you mean first, because they need different tools and give very different results.
- How to make an image transparentUsually it means a clear background, sometimes a see-through picture. Both are easy, and both are undone by saving in the wrong format.
- Logo variations: the versions every brand needsA full color version, a white one, and a black one, at minimum. Which you need, what each is for, and how to make them from the logo you have.
- What is image resolution?It is the pixel count, not the DPI and not the file size. And there is no such thing as high resolution until you say what it is for.
- RGB vs CMYK: which one do you actually need?One is light, the other is ink, and that single fact explains why the bright blue on your screen comes back from the printer looking flat.
- What size should Etsy listing photos be?The number is the easy part. The part that costs sales is that the same photo is cropped three different ways depending on where a buyer sees it.
- What is a mockup?Your artwork, shown on the thing it will really be. It answers the two questions a flat file cannot: how big is it, and what does it look like in a real place.
Privacy and safety
What is hidden inside your files, and who gets to see it.
- Are free image converters safe?Some are dangerous, most are merely careless, and the difference is something you can check yourself in about a minute.
- Can a blurred or pixelated photo be recovered?Sometimes, and the failures that matter are rarely mathematical. Usually the original was still in the file the whole time.