HEIC을 JPG로 변환하면 품질이 저하되나요? 진실

A common concern: “Will converting my HEIC photos to JPEG make them look worse?” The answer depends on your settings.

The Short Answer

Converting HEIC to JPEG at 92-100% quality produces visually identical results. At lower qualities (60-80%), you’ll see slight compression artifacts — but file sizes drop significantly.

Understanding Generational Loss

Every time you re-encode a lossy format (JPEG, HEIC), you lose a tiny bit of quality. This is called “generational loss.” However:

• HEIC → JPEG (1st generation): Visually lossless at ≥90% quality
• JPEG → JPEG (re-encode): Noticeable loss accumulates quickly
• HEIC → JPEG → JPEG: Avoid — convert from original HEIC each time

Bottom line: Converting HEIC to JPEG once at high quality is fine. Don’t re-convert JPEGs.

Quality vs File Size

Here’s what happens to a typical 12MP iPhone photo:

Quality Setting	Output Size	Visual Quality
100%	~8 MB	Identical to original
92% (default)	~4 MB	Imperceptible difference
80%	~2 MB	Minor artifacts in fine detail
60%	~1 MB	Visible compression, good for web
40%	~500 KB	Blocky, only for thumbnails

When Quality Loss Matters

• Printing (especially large formats): Use 95-100%
• Archiving: Keep original HEIC + convert copies as needed
• Social media: 80% is fine — platforms recompress anyway
• Email/Sharing: 70-80% balances quality and size

The Real Risk: Metadata Loss

The bigger issue isn’t pixel quality — it’s metadata loss. Most converters strip:

• GPS location
• Date/time taken
• Camera settings
• Orientation

Use heicgo.com to convert — it’s the only free web tool that preserves EXIF metadata.

Further Reading

• HEIC vs JPEG Comparison — format quality deep dive
• Compress JPEG Without Losing Quality — compression best practices
• How to Convert HEIC to JPG — convert at optimal quality