PNG and PSD are critical image formats in web development, design, and professional printing. The formats outdo each other in built-in features, software support, and usage areas based on their drawbacks and benefits, making it difficult to prefer using one over the other.
The article highlights and discusses PSD vs. PNG regarding image quality, structure, file size, storage, performance, browser support, animation and transparency support, and the compression method adopted.
When is PNG better than PSD?
PNG images use lossless compression to create smaller, high-quality images that increase user experience and reduce web loading times. In contrast, PSD images are uncompressed, making them significantly larger and increasing image loading times.
Read more about PNG extension files to learn about their high-quality, lossless compression, support for transparency, animation, structure, file size, storage requirements, browser support, and compatibility issues.
When is PSD better than PNG?
PSD images are often uncompressed or use lossless compression and are multilayered, detailed, and data-rich, resulting in flexible editing capabilities and higher-quality photos than PNG. PSD is better than PNG when it comes to print design workflows for creating print-ready materials, including business cards, posters, brochures, and more.
The pros of PSD images include the control and flexibility crucial for precise editing, complex compositions, and image manipulation; the layered structure enhancing specific tools to be exported and modified for web design; and the high-quality and layered structure ensuring adept output and color imitation.
PSD versus PNG Table Comparison
| Element | PNG | PSD |
| Transparency | Supports alpha channel transparency. | Supports alpha channel transparency. |
| File Size | Compressed and smaller file sizes than PSD. | Uncompressed and larger files than PNG. |
| Image Quality | Slightly lower-quality images than PSD images. | High-quality images than PNG images. |
| Performance | Smaller files with high web performance than PSD. | Larger files with minimal web performance than PNG. |
| Structure | Has an 8-byte signature header followed by many chunks with interior fields based on chunk type. | Multiple layered with file header, color mode data, image resources, layer and mask data, and image data. |
| Animation | Does not support animation. | Does not support animation. |
| Storage | Requires less storage space than PSD. | Requires more storage space than PNG. |
| Compression | Lossless compression with LZ77 algorithms and Huffman coding. | It is uncompressed and does not need lossy, lossless, LZW RLE, or ZIP compression. |
| Browser Support | Extensive browser support than PSD. | Limited browser support than PNG. |
Differences and similarities between PNG and PSD images
When doing a PNG versus PSD, you will discover that they have similarities in transparency, animation support, and image quality. However, file size, structure, compression, performance, browser support, and storage differ.
Transparency
PNG and PSD file formats support alpha channel transparency. However, PSD allows images with complex structures and transparent backgrounds to be created flawlessly in different projects and objects. PSD files support multilayer transparency, while PNG’s single-frame pixels support lossless transparent images, including logos and graphics.
File Size
PNG files are smaller than uncompressed PSD files due to their use of lossless compression. PSD files can contain multiple layers, including images, texts, files, and graphical elements with varying sizes and color depths, contributing to an overall increase in file size. PSD files can be as large as 2 gigabytes.
PSD files have a width and height dimension limit of 30,000 x 30,000 pixels. When multiple PSD files are combined, they become larger than PNG files. Due to their raster graphics nature, PNG files can become grainy when scaled up. Although PSD files are also raster-based, their high resolution and multiple layers allow for more flexible and higher-quality resizing within practical limits.
Image Quality
Both PNG and PSD are high-resolution and high-quality formats. However, PSD files support multichannel color modes like LAB color, indexed color, RGB, bitmap, duotone, CMYK, grayscale, and monochrome. PSD supports a 24-bit RGB color model, meaning PSD technically renders over 16 million colors.
Conversely, PNGs support 256 colors using the quantized palette. Nonetheless, the TrueColor PNG file can support up to 16 million colors. It supports full-color non-palette-based RGBA or RGB images, grayscale images, and palette-based images with 32-bit RGBA or 24-bit RGB colors.
PNG hardly supports CMYK, LAB color, duotone, and monotone, among other formats, making it slightly inferior to PSD in terms of quality. PSD is a very detailed, high-quality, and high-resolution file format, offering an appealing color spread and image depth range compared to PNG.
Performance
PNG files are smaller than PSD files. PSDs consume higher bandwidth costs when loading online and require more storage than PNGs. Besides, the large PSDs minimize search engine optimization and increase web loading times.
Compared to PSDs, PNG's enhanced web performance translates to better user experience. As a result, PNG files boast a comparative advantage over PSD files in terms of website performance and user experience.
Structure
Both PNG and PSD are raster graphics file formats. However, PSD files support multiple layers with varying graphical images, texts, and elements, while PNG comprises multi-samples of one pixel, which are hardly packed in a single byte. The scanlines of a PNG file start on byte limits each time.
PSD structure includes the file header, color mode data, image resources, layer and mask data, and image data. In contrast, the PNG structure starts with an 8-byte magic identification signature, closely followed by three or more chunks containing uniform syntax.
PSD’s file header has the primary image features: pixel width and height, the number of bits per channel, the number of image channels, the file's version, and color. The number of supported channels in the image header, including the alpha channels, ranges between 1 and 56.
A PNG file has critical chunks that each PNG file writer and reader must support to ensure proper file handling. In contrast, a PSD file's color mode data component specifies information about the color mode, with the length set to 0 unless the color mode is indexed. This section includes a color table for indexed color modes and provides duotone settings for duotone modes.
Animation
PNG and PSD files or images hardly have any inherent support for animation. Nevertheless, PSD files are multilayered and have high-quality definitions, making it possible to integrate such features into the designs of other file formats to create animation and lively content.
Conversely, while PNGs do not support animation, they allow their specifications to be extended in APNG, which supports animation or animated content by introducing the animation control chunk. Thus, PNG and PSD are not suitable for animation or lively content.
Storage
PSD stores uncompressed files, while PNG uses a lossless compression method to compress and store image data. As such, PNGs are smaller and require less storage space than PSD files. The compressed PNG image data is stored interlaced for progressive display.
On the other hand, PSDs store high-quality, multilayered image data than PNGs. PSD’s image data layers are stored independently for easy editing. The stored uncompressed image data requires more storage space than PNGs.
Depending on storage conditions, handling process, and storage mediums, PNG and PSD image formats can be stored indefinitely on floppy hard drives, Base64 encoding, Content Delivery Network (CDN), file systems, Cloud, DVDs, and CDs.
Compression
PSD hardly supports compression techniques, such as Zip with prediction coding, Zip without prediction coding, RLE compression, or raw image data. It is an example of an uncompressed file type. It does not need lossy or lossless compression.
Unlike lossless PNGs, PSD files are uncompressed, typically resulting in a large file size and more storage space demands than PNG files. PNG uses the non-patented lossless file compression method DEFLATE, which uses Huffman coding and LZ77 algorithms to produce smaller images than PSD. The compressed PNG files are of higher quality and increase web responsiveness and user experience compared to the uncompressed PSD files.
Browser Support
PNG and PSD enjoy extensive web browser support. However, PSD is supported by top browsers such as Firefox, Edge, Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi, and Safari but is incompatible with Internet Explorer, Discord, and Brave.
On the other hand, 81.8% of websites currently use and support PNG files, including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, Opera, Discord, Internet Explorer, Vivaldi, and Brave. Hence, choose PNG over PSD for universal web browser support, which is limited in some older and new browsers.
Converting PNG to PSD or PSD to PNG
Convert PNG to PSD using Convertjack to enjoy detailed, transparent, high-quality, and multilayered PSD files that enable future editing and scaling compared to the highly pixelated PNG files. PSD allows users to import and edit multiple graphics and high-quality images.
PSDs can store flexible, high-resolution, and editable multilayered image data, making them ideal for photographic manipulation and digital design.
Otherwise, use a PSD to PNG converter called Convertjack to enjoy smaller, info-rich, transparent, and high-quality PNG images. PNGs are ideal for creating logos, graphics, illustrations, and architectural plans that significantly increase web responsiveness, reduce bandwidths, and improve user experience.