Turn Bulky BMP Files into JPG — Shrink 90%

Why convert BMP to JPG

BMP files store every pixel's color value uncompressed, which is why they're often 10-20x larger than a JPG of the same image — converting to JPG applies real compression for the first time, typically shrinking the file by 90% or more with the quality slider around 80-90%. Because BMP has no compression to begin with, this conversion is a pure quality-for-size tradeoff rather than a re-encode of already-lossy data: you're choosing exactly how much detail JPG's DCT compression discards. At high quality settings (85%+), the visual difference from the uncompressed BMP is usually impossible to spot, even though the file is a fraction of the size. Standard BMP doesn't carry a usable alpha channel in most workflows, so there's typically no transparency to lose here. JPG's downside is that it's lossy going forward — once converted, repeated edits will gradually degrade quality in a way raw BMP never would. This conversion makes sense whenever a BMP needs to leave the system that produced it: email, upload forms, or any web use where a multi-megabyte bitmap is impractical. Keep the BMP as an archival original if you might need pixel-exact data again — JPG can't get that precision back.

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