Portable Network Graphics 1.1

Partly documented

image · also known as PNG (1.1)

Portable Network Graphics (PNG) was designed for the lossless, portable, compressed storage of raster images. PNG provides a patent-free replacement for GIF and can also replace many common uses of TIFF. Indexed-color, grayscale, and truecolor images are supported, plus an optional alpha channel. Sample depths range from 1 to 16 bits. PNG is designed to work in online viewing applications, so it is fully streamable. It can store gamma and chromaticity. PNG also detects file corruption.

Identify it

Extensions	`.png`
MIME types	`image/png`
Signatures	`89504e470d0a1a0a0000000d49484452` at byte 0 (PNG 1.1iCCP)
PRONOM	`fmt/12`
Wikidata	`Q27229608`
Apple UTI	`public.png`

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Open it

3DSlicerOpen sourcereads and writes · BSD licenses
AndroidOpen sourcereads and writes · Apache Software License 2.0 / GNU General Public License, version 2.0
AvogadroOpen sourcewrites · 3-clause BSD License
Bad PeggyOpen sourcereads and writes · GNU General Public License, version 3.0
Biosphere3DOpen sourcewrites · Mozilla Public License
Classic ColorsOpen sourcereads and writes · GNU General Public License, version 2.0
DearkOpen sourcewrites · MIT License
DendroscopeOpen sourcewrites · GNU General Public License, version 3.0
DevILOpen sourcereads and writes · GNU Lesser General Public License, version 2.1
digiKamOpen sourcereads and writes · GNU General Public License, version 2.0 or later
djxlOpen sourcewrites · 3-clause BSD License
farbfeldOpen sourcereads and writes · ISC license
GD Graphics LibraryOpen sourcewrites · BSD licenses
GDALOpen sourcereads and writes · MIT License
GephiOpen sourcewrites · GNU General Public License
GigaMeshOpen sourcewrites · GNU General Public License
GIMPOpen sourcereads and writes · GNU General Public License, version 3.0
GNU Dr. GeoOpen sourcewrites · GNU General Public License, version 2.0 or later
ImageMagickOpen sourcereads and writes · ImageMagick License
Integrated Genome BrowserOpen sourcewrites · Common Public License
KarbonOpen sourcewrites · GNU Lesser General Public License
KmPlotOpen sourcewrites · GNU General Public License, version 2.0 or later
Kreative Structured Format LibraryOpen sourcereads and writes · Mozilla Public License
KritaOpen sourcereads and writes · GNU General Public License, version 3.0
libexiv2Open sourcereads and writes · GNU General Public License, version 2.0 or later
libpngOpen sourcereads and writes · Libpng License
LibreOffice DrawOpen sourcereads and writes · Mozilla Public License, version 2.0
librsvgOpen sourcewrites · GNU General Public License / GNU General Public License, version 2.0 / GNU Lesser General Public License / GNU Library General Public License, version 2.0
LodePNGOpen sourcereads and writes · zlib License
MatplotlibOpen sourcewrites · Matplotlib license
MscGenOpen sourcewrites · GNU General Public License
NtEdOpen sourcewrites · GNU General Public License, version 2.0 or later
OpenJUMPOpen sourcereads and writes · GNU General Public License, version 2.0
OrthancOpen sourcewrites · GNU General Public License, version 3.0
Overpass TurboOpen sourcewrites · MIT License
PDFCreatorOpen sourcereads and writes · GNU General Public License, version 3.0
PhpThumbOpen sourcereads and writes · GNU General Public License
PIPE2Open sourcewrites · MIT License
PiskelOpen sourcereads and writes · Apache Software License 2.0
PLplotOpen sourcewrites · GNU Library General Public License, version 2.0 or later

And 303 more in the JSON record.

Convert it

To	With	Fidelity	Command and losses
Tagged Image File Format	ImageMagick	Lossless	`convert in.png out.tif` Pixels kept; some metadata, colour profiles or layers may be dropped.
GIF 89a	ImageMagick	Lossy	`convert in.png out.gif` Reduced to 256 colours.
JPEG File Interchange Format 1.02	ImageMagick	Lossy	`convert in.png out.jpg` Lossy compression.
WebP	ImageMagick	Lossy	`convert in.png out.webp` Lossy compression.

Documentation

kaitai grammar: https://github.com/kaitai-io/kaitai_struct_formats/blob/master/image/png.ksy

Sources

From Kaitai Struct format gallery, PRONOM, Wikidata. Updated 2026-10-24.

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