PNG to TGA Converter

Turn PNG textures, sprites and UI art into Truevision TGA files for game engines and tools that list Targa as their texture input. Transparent pixels are written to the alpha channel, so cut-outs and masks keep working.

or drop JPG, JPEG, JPE … files here ·

Max 95 MB per file· Up to 20 files· Deleted after 30 minutes

Output

Convert to

Files are processed on our servers and deleted after 30 minutes.

How to use this tool

1
Add the PNG textures
Select up to 20 PNG files, 95 MB each. A whole texture set (diffuse, normal, roughness, mask) can go in one batch.
2
Leave resize off for engine textures
Keep Resize output image on Keep original size so power-of-two dimensions such as 1024 × 1024 or 2048 × 2048 stay exact.
3
Convert to TGA
Press Convert to TGA and download the files one by one or as a ZIP, then drop them into the engine's import folder.

Why game engines and texture tools still ask for TGA

Truevision designed the TGA format in 1984 for its TARGA video capture boards, and the 1989 revision, TGA 2.0, added the footer and extension area most software reads today. The format is simple enough to load in a few dozen lines of code: a short header, an optional color map, then raw or run-length encoded pixels. That simplicity is exactly why game studios adopted it in the 1990s and why so many pipelines never moved on.

The practical reasons are alpha and predictability. A 32-bit TGA always carries a straight 8-bit alpha channel next to the color, with no gamma chunk or color-profile chunk for an importer to interpret differently. Texture artists trust it to come out of Photoshop, Substance or Blender and into the engine with exactly the same values.

PNG to TGA for Unreal, Source, Unity and Blender

Organisation	Requirement	Source
Unreal Engine	Imports TGA, PNG, PSD and others; textures need power-of-two sides to get mipmaps and streaming	—
Source engine (vtex)	Valve's texture compiler reads TGA and writes VTF; alpha drives translucency and masks	—
Unity	Imports TGA directly and compresses it per target platform on build	—
Blender	Reads and writes Targa, offering both an RLE "Targa" and an uncompressed "Targa Raw" output	—

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

PNG converter

TGA

Truevision TGA (Targa)

TGA, also called Targa, was created by Truevision in 1984 for its graphics cards. It stores raster images uncompressed or with lossless run-length encoding and supports an 8-bit alpha channel. The simple structure made it a long-standing favourite for game textures, 3D renders and video graphics. Files are large compared with PNG, and browsers and phones do not display TGA. Most image editors, game engines and 3D programs read it.

Compression: Lossless
Transparency: Yes
Animation: No
Introduced: 1984 · Truevision

TGA converter

PNG goes to TGA when a game engine, modding tool or render pipeline is set up around Targa textures with an 8-bit alpha channel; TGA comes back to PNG when a texture has to be previewed in a browser or shared outside that pipeline.

TGA alpha, RLE compression and 32-bit output

RLE (run-length encoding)Compressed TGA · TGA image type 10: The only compression TGA defines. Runs of identical pixels are stored once with a repeat count, which shrinks flat UI art and masks a lot and photographic textures hardly at all. Header image type 2 means uncompressed true color; type 10 means the same data run-length encoded.

Every engine and editor that reads TGA reads both the plain and the RLE variant, so the choice rarely matters for import. It matters more for version control: uncompressed TGAs diff and store predictably, which is why some studios ban RLE in their asset rules. Photoshop exposes the same choice as a Compress (RLE) checkbox in its Targa save dialog.

One thing to check before converting is the PNG's alpha. Many exporters write a full alpha channel even for opaque art, and engines then treat the texture as translucent, which costs sorting and overdraw. If the alpha is meaningless, remove it in your editor first. For the format background behind PNG itself, see JPG vs JPEG vs PNG; when a TGA has to go back into a browser preview, TGA to PNG reverses this page.

PNG to TGA texture questions

Will the TGA be 24-bit or 32-bit?

A PNG with an alpha channel becomes a 32-bit TGA: 8 bits each for red, green, blue and alpha. An opaque PNG needs only 24 bits. If an engine insists on 32-bit for a texture without transparency, give the PNG an alpha channel that is fully opaque before converting.

Is PNG to TGA lossless?

For ordinary 8-bit PNGs, yes: every color and alpha value is copied exactly. A 16-bit-per-channel PNG, typical for height maps exported from sculpting tools, is reduced to 8 bits, because TGA has no deeper true-color mode. Keep such maps as PNG or EXR if the engine accepts them.

Why does my TGA show up upside down in one program?

TGA can store rows from the bottom up or from the top down, with a flag in the header saying which. Most tools read the flag; a few old viewers and hand-written loaders ignore it and draw the picture flipped. Flip it in the loader or in an editor rather than reconverting.

Should I use TGA or DDS for game textures?

TGA is the source file you keep and re-import; DDS holds GPU-compressed data the graphics card reads directly. Unreal and Unity accept TGA and compress it themselves on import. Mods and older engines that load textures without an import step often want DDS, which PNG to DDS produces.

Why is the TGA so much larger than the PNG?

PNG uses Deflate compression; TGA at best uses simple run-length encoding, which only helps on flat areas. A detailed 2048 × 2048 texture with alpha takes about 16 MB uncompressed as TGA. The engine compresses it again when it builds the game, so the size on disk only matters for your project folder.