About the GIF to JPG Converter
A GIF that started life as a photograph is usually the worst of both worlds: it has already lost colour depth to the 256 entry palette, and it is still large because LZW struggles with noisy pixel data. Re-encoding it as JPEG generally cuts the size sharply, since the discrete cosine transform copes far better with photographic texture than run length coding does.
Because JPEG carries no alpha channel, every transparent pixel needs a colour to sit on. The Flatten onto menu decides that colour before the encoder runs, so a logo cut out of a white page can be put back onto white rather than onto the black that many converters default to. Quality behaves the way it does everywhere else: 90 for a faithful copy, 70 when the file has to be small.
Expect the dithering pattern that many GIF encoders apply to become slightly soft after JPEG compression, because those alternating pixels are exactly the high frequency detail JPEG discards first. If you want an exact copy of the frame instead, GIF to PNG keeps every pixel and every transparent area.
How to use
- Load the GIF from your disk or the clipboard.
- Choose the background colour that should replace transparency.
- Adjust Quality until the reported size suits you, then download.
Common questions
- Which frame of an animation is used?
- The first one. JPEG stores a single still image.
- Why is the JPG sometimes bigger than the GIF?
- That happens with tiny flat graphics such as icons, where JPEG overhead outweighs the compression. For those, keep the GIF or use PNG.
- Do the dithered dots disappear?
- They soften. JPEG smooths the fine speckle a GIF encoder adds to fake extra colours, which usually looks better.
- Can I resize while converting?
- Yes, pick a value in the Max width menu and the height follows the original aspect ratio.