Convert BMP to JPG

Converting BMP to JPG is worth doing when the destination matters more than the source. BMP is built for uncompressed bitmaps, mostly a legacy Windows format. JPG is built for photographs, where small files matter more than perfect fidelity. Which one you want depends entirely on where the image is going next.

BMP stores every pixel uncompressed, which is why a modest image can run to tens of megabytes. Converting to JPG routinely cuts the size by a factor of twenty or more with no visible difference, and is the obvious move for any photographic BMP.

JPG compresses by discarding detail, so this conversion trades some fidelity for a much smaller file. At high quality settings the difference is invisible in photographs, though flat colour and sharp text can show artefacts. Keep the BMP original as your master copy.

BMP stores pixels uncompressed, which is why the files are so large. Expect a dramatic size reduction here, frequently by a factor of ten or more, with no visible change.

JPG is where you go for size. Coming from a lossless source you are making the one irreversible decision in this conversion, since detail discarded now cannot come back. That is usually the right trade for photographic content and the wrong one for screenshots and line art, where the edges are exactly what JPG handles worst.

BMP needs almost no decoding at all, since the pixels are stored raw. That makes it the fastest input here to read and the slowest to encode from, because there is a great deal of uncompressed data to work through.

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