HEIF to PNG Converter
Turn HEIF photos from a Samsung phone and .HIF files from a Canon or Sony camera into PNG copies that any editor opens, without a second round of lossy compression.
Image Converter
or drop JPG, JPEG, JPE … files here ·
Max 95 MB per file· Up to 20 files· Deleted after 30 minutes
Files are processed on our servers and deleted after 30 minutes.
85 keeps photos visually identical to the original. Lower it only when you need a smaller file.
JPG, BMP and EPS have no transparency. Transparent pixels are filled with this color.
Hex color used behind transparent pixels, e.g. #FFFFFF.
This format holds a single image. Choose GIF or WebP output if you want to keep the animation.
A multi-size icon contains several resolutions in one file; browsers and operating systems pick the one they need.
Keep the original dimensions, or enter one side and the aspect ratio is kept.
Pixels for the side you chose above.
Percentage of the original dimensions.
sRGB is right for screens and the web. Keep the original for print workflows; grayscale discards color.
Metadata only, 0 keeps the original value. Printers and some portals read this number; it does not change pixel dimensions.
How to use this tool
- 1
Upload the HEIF or HIF files
Drag up to 20 photos onto the upload area. Camera .HIF, phone .heif and .heic files are all accepted, up to 95 MB each.
- 2
Leave the color settings as they are
Color space stays on sRGB and Keep color profile stays on, so the PNG looks right in editors and browsers. Pick Keep original only for a color-managed print workflow.
- 3
Press Convert to PNG
Save each PNG on its own or the whole batch as one ZIP. Files are removed from the server after 30 minutes.
HEIF to PNG for camera .HIF and Samsung .heif files
HEIF, the High Efficiency Image File Format, was published by MPEG as ISO/IEC 23008-12 in 2015. It is a container for images, thumbnails, depth maps and alpha planes, and most HEIF files store their pictures as HEVC (H.265) frames. HEVC needs a licensed decoder, and plenty of tools never shipped one.
Cameras arrived later than phones. The Canon EOS-1D X Mark III (2020) was the first Canon to save .HIF files, and only in HDR PQ mode; the Sony a7S III added 10-bit HEIF the same year. On Samsung Galaxy phones the camera setting High efficiency pictures switches capture to HEIF. Many web uploaders and older editors refuse all three.
PNG is the safe landing format when the next stop is an editor rather than a chat. If a portal only takes JPG, use HEIF to JPG; for iPhone photos the HEIC to PNG page covers Apple's variant of the same container.
10-bit HEIF, 8-bit and 16-bit PNG: what the numbers mean
- Levels per channel in 8-bit PNG or JPG
- 256
- Levels per channel in 10-bit camera HEIF
- 1,024
- Levels per channel in 16-bit PNG
- 65,536
Ten bits give four times as many tonal steps as eight, which is why camera HEIF keeps skies and shadow gradients smooth. PNG stores 8 or 16 bits per channel but has no 10-bit option, and most software you are converting for edits in 8 bits anyway.
The conversion maps the HEIF into sRGB so it looks correct everywhere. For ordinary photos the difference is invisible. For HDR PQ or HLG captures it is a real change: highlights an HDR screen would show are compressed into a standard range. Keep the original HEIF if you plan to deliver HDR later.
HEIC
High Efficiency Image Container
HEIC is the HEIF image container (an MPEG standard from 2015) holding pictures compressed with the HEVC (H.265) codec. Apple made it the default photo format on iPhone and iPad in 2017 because it stores photos at roughly half the size of JPEG with similar quality. It can hold depth data, Live Photo sequences, transparency and 10-bit colour. Support outside the Apple ecosystem is patchy: many Windows PCs, web browsers, websites and online forms cannot open HEIC without extra codecs.
- Compression
- Lossy
- Transparency
- Yes
- Animation
- Yes
- Introduced
- 2015 · Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG)
PNG
Portable Network Graphics
PNG is a lossless raster format published in 1996 by the PNG Development Group and later standardised by the W3C and ISO. It keeps every pixel exactly, supports full alpha transparency and handles text, sharp edges and flat colours without artefacts. That precision makes it ideal for screenshots, logos, icons and interface graphics. The trade-off is size: photographs saved as PNG are often several times larger than the same photo as JPEG or WebP. All browsers, operating systems and editors open PNG files.
- Compression
- Lossless
- Transparency
- Yes
- Animation
- No
- Introduced
- 1996 · PNG Development Group
A HEIF goes to PNG when the photo is about to be edited, layered or archived and must not lose anything to another lossy encode; the PNG to HEIF direction only makes sense for shrinking a finished image for Apple or Samsung galleries.
Is PNG the right target for your HEIF photos
PNG gives you
- A copy that never loses detail however often it is opened and saved
- Support in every editor, browser, office suite and operating system
- A real alpha channel for cut-outs made from the photo
- An exact starting point for retouching or print layout
PNG costs you
- Files five to ten times larger than the HEIF
- No HDR headroom once mapped to sRGB
- Uploads slow down on forms with a size cap
- Most email and chat services would rather receive a JPG
HEIF to PNG questions
Why pick PNG over JPG when converting a HEIF photo?
JPG compresses the picture a second time, and every edit-and-save cycle adds more blocking. PNG stores the decoded pixels exactly, so retouching and re-exporting start from a clean copy. Choose HEIF to JPG when the photo is only being shared.
Do 10-bit HEIF files from my camera stay 10-bit in the PNG?
PNG has no 10-bit mode; it stores 8 or 16 bits per channel. With the default sRGB setting the picture is mapped to the standard range that every screen shows, so treat the PNG as a working copy and keep the original .HIF when you might grade the HDR version later.
My Canon .HIF looks washed out after converting. Why?
Canon writes HEIF only when HDR PQ shooting is switched on, so those files carry an HDR transfer curve. Software that ignores the curve shows them flat and gray. Converting with the default sRGB color space tone-maps the picture into a normal range, which is what most editors and viewers expect.
How large does a HEIF become as a PNG?
Expect roughly five to ten times the size of the HEIF. A typical 12-megapixel phone shot of 2 to 3 MB lands around 15 to 25 MB as a PNG, because lossless compression cannot discard detail the way HEVC does. If it must later fit a size cap, run it through the image compressor.
Can a HEIF image with a transparent layer keep it?
HEIF can carry an alpha plane as an auxiliary image, and PNG has a full alpha channel, so transparency carries across. Photos straight from a camera or phone have no alpha, so their PNG copies are opaque.
Are the shooting date and camera settings kept?
Strip metadata is on by default to protect GPS location. Untick it under Advanced settings to write the capture date, camera model and exposure data into the PNG.
