Why is this photo a GIF, and how do you fix it?
Old sites saved photographs as GIFs, dithered to 256 colours. JPG at least stores what remains efficiently.
Runs in your browser. Your file never leaves your computer.
- Use casePhotos stuck in old GIFs
- InheritedDithering from the GIF era
- SizeDrops to a sensible weight
- Wrong forLogos and line art; use PNG
Before JPG conquered the web, photographs sometimes shipped as GIFs, dithered down to 256 colours and bloated anyway. Files like that surface from old archives and sites, and converting them to JPG at least stores what survives efficiently. Be clear about the ceiling: the dithering and colour loss happened decades ago and are permanent; JPG inherits them in a smaller, universally accepted file. For graphics rather than photos, PNG remains the better exit from GIF.
Questions
Can the original photo quality be recovered?
No. The reduction to 256 colours was lossy and happened when the GIF was made. Conversion changes the container, not history.
Should graphics take this route?
No; flat-colour images belong in PNG, where they stay crisp and lossless. This page earns its keep on photographic content.
Local processing?
Yes, entirely in-browser.
Related conversions
- GIF to MP4The classic upgrade. Video codecs were built for motion; the same clip drops dramatically and plays everywhere.
- GIF to PNGA clean lossless still from a GIF: the first frame of an animation, or the whole image of a static one.
- GIF to WebPSame loop, full colour range, a fraction of the bytes, for destinations that live in browsers.
- GIF to AVIFOld GIF graphics and photos, restored to a modern format at the smallest sizes browsers can decode.
- GIF to PDFLegacy diagrams and charts, put on a proper page for filing, printing or attaching where documents rule.
- HEIC to JPGiPhone photos, turned into the JPG that Windows, forms, email and older apps expect. Converted on your own machine, location removed.
Part of convert images in your browser. Every other conversion is on the conversions index.