JPEG
Joint Photographic Experts Group — a lossy compressed image format that balances file size and visual quality for photographs.
JPEG is the most widely used image format for photographs, supported by virtually every device and platform. It achieves small file sizes by discarding visual information the human eye is less sensitive to, particularly in high-frequency detail areas. Quality settings from 1-100 control the compression aggressiveness — quality 85-95 produces visually indistinguishable results from the original at moderate file sizes, while quality 50-70 creates significantly smaller files with visible compression artifacts in detailed areas. JPEG does not support transparency, making it unsuitable for cutout images. Each save-edit-save cycle introduces additional quality loss since the lossy compression is reapplied. For this reason, professional photographers work with RAW or PNG originals and only export final versions as JPEG.