When PNG is the right target for an AVIF
AVIF files arrive from the web: product shots, logos, stickers and illustrations that a site sent in AVIF because the files are small. Many of them have a transparent background. If you want to put that picture into a document, a slide, a design app or another website, PNG is the format that keeps the transparency and that every editor opens. For an ordinary photo you only want to view or send, AVIF to JPG gives a far smaller file.
The conversion itself is simple: your browser decodes the AVIF and the PNG stores exactly those pixels, with no further compression loss. What decides whether the result is right are the details around it, and those are what this page checks and reports for every file.
What we measured
We converted a set of test AVIFs in Chrome 154 on 12 October 2026 and read every PNG back with an independent decoder (Pillow with libavif) to compare pixel by pixel.
| Test file | Result |
|---|---|
| Logo with soft edges and a shadow, 11,348 half-transparent pixels | Alpha channel identical to the AVIF's (largest difference 0) |
| Phone photo, 2048 × 1536, 497 KB | Pixels identical to libavif's decoding; 5.27 MB PNG (11× the AVIF) |
| Same photo, PNG with an empty alpha channel | 6.01 MB, 14% more for nothing; this tool writes opaque images without one |
| Animated AVIF, 12 frames | 12 numbered PNGs, each frame in the right order and position |
| Display P3 colour test (10-bit) | P3 values kept, Display P3 profile embedded; as sRGB the reddest red would shift by 6.8 Delta E |
Transparency, exactly
AVIF stores transparency as a separate greyscale image, and soft edges and shadows are made of thousands of half-transparent pixels. Converters that lose them leave a jagged outline or a white rim when the picture is placed on a coloured background. In our test logo every one of the 11,348 half-transparent pixels kept its exact transparency. The other way round matters too: a browser's PNG export always adds an alpha channel, even when every pixel is solid, which makes photos bigger and can trip up upload checks that want a plain RGB image. When the AVIF has no transparency, this tool writes the PNG without the empty channel.
Animated AVIF to PNG frames
An AVIF can be an animation, like a GIF but much smaller. Opening one in most converters gives you the
first frame and no hint that there was more. Here the note says how many frames the file has, and with
Every frame each one becomes its own PNG, numbered so they sort in order
(name-01.png, name-02.png…), ready as a ZIP. This uses the browser's
ImageDecoder API, available in Chrome and Edge; in other browsers the tool saves the first frame and
says so. To turn the frames into a GIF again, drop them on the GIF maker.
Colour and bit depth
Some AVIFs are saved in Display P3, a wider colour range than standard sRGB. Converted as sRGB, their most vivid reds and greens are pulled in: by 6.8 and 5.3 Delta E in our test, while skin tones barely moved (0.4). This tool keeps P3 images in P3 and embeds the profile in the PNG, which design apps and current operating systems read. Choose Standard sRGB if the PNG is going somewhere that ignores colour profiles.
Many AVIFs also use 10 bits per channel. Browsers write PNG at 8 bits, so the PNG has 256 steps per channel instead of 1,024. For viewing and placing images this makes no visible difference; the note mentions it so you know before doing heavy colour grading on the result. HDR AVIFs are brought into normal range by the browser, and the note says that too.
Why the PNG is so much bigger
PNG keeps every pixel exactly, which is ideal for flat graphics and terrible for photos: our 497 KB photo became 5.27 MB. A logo, by contrast, often comes out small. If you need a photo with transparency in a smaller file, convert it to WebP afterwards, which also keeps transparency. If the AVIF won't open in your apps at all, our guide how to open AVIF files shows how to add AVIF support on Windows, Mac and phones.