AVIF to PNG Converter

AVIF vs PNG — Which One Do You Actually Need?

Both formats store a still picture with an alpha channel and neither one is "better" in the abstract: AVIF exists to make the file small, PNG exists to make the file openable and editable everywhere. Convert to PNG when something downstream — an older editor, a print tool, a game engine, a CMS, an OS thumbnailer — refuses to read AVIF, or when you want a copy you can re-save repeatedly without stacking up compression artefacts. Stay on AVIF when bandwidth or storage is what you are optimising. The conversion is faithful to the pixels the AVIF holds today, but it cannot rebuild detail a lossy AVIF encoder already threw away.

Side-by-side: AVIF vs PNG

When to Convert to PNG

• A tool in your chain will not open .avif — many older Photoshop builds, Office versions, CMS uploaders and game pipelines still stop at PNG, JPG and TIFF.
• You need an alpha channel that any software can read, for a logo, an icon or a cut-out product shot.
• The image is a screenshot, diagram, UI mock-up or flat-colour graphic, where PNG's lossless encoding is genuinely the right fit.
• You expect several rounds of open-edit-save and do not want lossy generations to accumulate.

When to Stay on AVIF

• You are serving the image on the web to modern browsers and every kilobyte counts.
• The picture is a 10- or 12-bit or HDR master — the conversion writes an 8-bit PNG, so that precision is lost.
• The file is an AVIF image sequence you want to keep animated; a still PNG target keeps only one frame.
• Storage is the constraint, not compatibility.

How to Convert AVIF to PNG

1. Upload Your AVIF File: Drag and drop your .avif onto the page or click "Add Files". A queue of images all convert with the same settings.
2. Pick the Quality Preset: "Very High (Recommended)" is the default and runs a palette optimiser over the PNG; choose Highest if you want a true-colour PNG with no colour reduction at all.
3. Set Image Resolution and Colors (Optional): Image resolution starts on "Keep original" — switch to a percentage, a preset height or an exact width/height to scale down. Colors starts on Original; "By Color Reduction + Dither" lets you force a specific palette (2 to 256 colours) for flat graphics.
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert and save the PNG. No sign-up, no watermark.

What the Quality Preset Actually Does

The preset does not change the PNG format — PNG always stores exactly the pixels handed to it. What changes is whether those pixels are reduced to a palette first.

Two further dropdowns sit underneath the preset — Compression level (default 6) and Compression speed (default 4) — which exist to tune encoder effort rather than the picture itself. The shipped defaults are the right choice for almost every conversion.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the PNG I get actually lossless?

The PNG container is always lossless — it stores exactly what it is given. The question is what it is given. At the default Very High preset our encoder first runs the image through a palette optimiser, so the file is a 256-colour PNG: perceptually very close, dramatically smaller, but not bit-identical to the decoded AVIF. Choose Highest and no colour reduction happens at all, so you get a truecolour PNG carrying every colour the AVIF decoded to.

Why is the PNG so much bigger than the AVIF?

Because AVIF is doing intra-frame video compression on a still image and PNG is doing lossless entropy coding on raw scanlines — they are not in the same weight class for photographs. In our testing, a detailed 800 × 600 test image stored as a 19 KB AVIF came back as a 185 KB palette PNG at the default preset, and a 926 KB truecolour PNG at Highest. That ratio is normal and is the price of a format everything can open.

Will converting to PNG improve the image?

No. Conversion never adds detail. If the AVIF was encoded lossily, its artefacts are baked into the pixels and travel straight into the PNG. What you gain is that no further loss happens on subsequent saves — useful if the file is about to go through several editing rounds.

Does the PNG keep my AVIF's transparency?

Yes. Both formats carry a real alpha channel, and the palette optimiser used by the default presets preserves per-pixel alpha rather than flattening it, so semi-transparent edges stay soft. Nothing is composited onto a background colour. This is the main reason to prefer PNG over AVIF to JPG, which has to fill transparent areas with a solid colour.

My AVIF is 10-bit or HDR — does that survive?

No. PNG can describe 16-bit channels and, since the 2025 third edition, HDR metadata, but this converter writes an 8-bit sRGB PNG: we tested a 10-bit AVIF through the same encoder and the result was 8-bit truecolour. For a grading or print master keep the AVIF itself, or convert to AVIF to TIFF and pick a lossless compression type there.

What happens to an animated AVIF image sequence?

You get a single still PNG of the first frame. AVIF can hold an image sequence and PNG can animate via APNG, but this tool's image path treats the source as one picture — we confirmed that a three-frame AVIF produced one PNG. If you want the animation preserved, convert to AVIF to GIF or to APNG instead.

Should I convert to WebP or JPG rather than PNG?

If the goal is compatibility with editing software, PNG. If the goal is a small web file that still supports transparency, AVIF to WebP is usually the better trade — lossy WebP is a fraction of PNG's size and is supported by every current browser. Pick JPG only when the image has no transparency and the destination is genuinely JPEG-only, such as an older camera-workflow tool.

What happens to my file after the conversion?

It is uploaded over an encrypted connection, converted on our servers and deleted automatically after a few hours. There is no sign-up and no watermark, and your images are never shared or made public. The reverse direction, PNG to AVIF, works the same way.