PNG
Lossless pixels, born out of a licensing dispute.
Where it came from
PNG was born in January 1995, after Unisys announced it would charge royalties for LZW compression used in GIF. Within weeks, developers on Usenet drafted a patent-free replacement; version 1.0 shipped in 1996 and became an ISO standard in 2003.
The name is an explicit recursive joke: 'PNG's Not GIF'.
How it works
A PNG file is a sequence of chunks: IHDR (dimensions, bit depth), IDAT (compressed pixel data), IEND. Pixels pass through per-row filters (sub/up/average/paeth) that make neighbors predictable, then DEFLATE compresses the result — the same algorithm as ZIP.
It supports full 8-bit alpha transparency and lossless storage, which makes it ideal for screenshots, UI and graphics with sharp edges. For photos, JPEG/WebP/AVIF are far smaller.
UWC converts PNG to modern formats via canvas in your browser, and heavy targets (AVIF, TIFF, ICO) through its server — either way, images aren't stored.
Convert PNG images
Open the studio, drop a PNG, pick a target format. Screenshots shrink dramatically when they become WebP or AVIF.