JPEG's are most commonly used to hold 24bit / true colour photographic images. They are lossy which means that some detail does get lost when saving to this format. Most JPEG tools offer a choice between quality / detail and file size. In general the higher the quality the larger the image. As they lose detail when saving, they are not suitable for certain tasks. Like GIF's, the JPEG format has been around for decades and can be viewed and edited by most programs.
✔️ Good for photographs on websites.
✔️ Well supported.
❌ Loss of detail due to compression means not good as a final / archive format.
❌ Compression is generally beaten WebP and JPG XL.
Other image formats:
GIF |
JPEG |
JPEG XL |
PNG |
QOI |
WEBP
Comparison
Updated (20/06/2026)