JPG

JPG (JPEG) is the most versatile lossy photo format, standardized by the JPEG committee in 1992. It strikes a good balance between image quality and file size, and is supported by nearly all devices and software. It is ideal for photographs, screenshots, and web images.

The cost of JPG is that compression introduces block artifacts and does not support an alpha channel. Edges and text can become blurred due to compression. When used for image-to-3D conversion, JPG suits photographic heightmaps, but for contour-based conversions, PNG is recommended to obtain clean edges. Artifacts at the boundary between dark backgrounds and subjects can affect the quality of the generated mesh.