Choosing the right image format for your textures affects file size, visual quality, compatibility, and workflow efficiency. There is no single best format — the right choice depends on whether you are targeting the web, a game engine, an offline renderer, or an archival pipeline. This guide compares the most common texture formats and when to use each.
PNG: The Lossless Standard
PNG uses lossless compression, meaning every pixel is preserved exactly as authored. It supports 8-bit and 16-bit channels, full alpha transparency, and embedded color profiles. PNG is universally supported by every browser, image editor, and game engine.
The downside is file size. A 2048px RGBA PNG texture can easily reach 8–15 MB. For web delivery, this is prohibitively large. For archival and inter-tool exchange (exporting from Substance Painter, importing into Blender), PNG is excellent because no quality is lost. Use PNG when fidelity matters more than file size: normal maps, displacement maps, and any texture that will be further processed.
JPEG: Small but Lossy
JPEG uses DCT-based lossy compression that discards high-frequency detail to achieve small file sizes. A 2048px texture that is 12 MB as PNG might be 500 KB as JPEG at quality 85. JPEG does not support alpha transparency, and its block-based compression creates visible artifacts around hard edges — text, sharp lines, and high-contrast boundaries suffer.
JPEG works well for diffuse/albedo textures with soft gradients and organic detail: wood grain, fabric weave, stone surfaces. Avoid JPEG for normal maps (compression destroys directional accuracy), masks (no alpha channel), or any texture with hard edges. Quality 80–85 is the typical sweet spot for texture work.
WebP: Best of Both Worlds
WebP supports both lossy and lossless compression, alpha transparency, and animation. Lossy WebP is 25–35% smaller than equivalent JPEG. Lossless WebP is 20–25% smaller than PNG. Browser support is now universal (97%+), making WebP the recommended format for web-delivered textures.
For game engines and DCC tools, WebP support is less consistent. Blender, Unreal Engine, and Unity all support WebP import, but some older plugins and tools do not. Use WebP primarily for final web delivery and stick with PNG for inter-tool exchange.
EXR and HDR: Linear Color and High Dynamic Range
OpenEXR (.exr) stores floating-point pixel data in linear color space with 16-bit or 32-bit precision per channel. This makes it essential for PBR map storage — normal maps, displacement, roughness, and any data that must be mathematically precise rather than visually pleasing. EXR supports multiple named layers in a single file (albedo, normal, roughness as separate layers), lossless compression (ZIP, PIZ), and arbitrary metadata.
HDR (.hdr, Radiance format) is an older floating-point format used primarily for environment maps and IBL (image-based lighting) probes. It stores RGB in a compact 32-bit RGBE encoding. For texture maps, EXR is preferred over HDR due to its greater precision and feature set.
File sizes are large: a 2048px EXR with 16-bit float channels can be 24–48 MB depending on compression. These formats are for production pipelines, not web delivery.
DDS and KTX2: GPU-Compressed Formats
DDS (DirectDraw Surface) and KTX2 (Khronos Texture) are container formats for GPU-compressed texture data (BC1–BC7, ASTC, ETC2). Unlike PNG or JPEG, which must be decompressed to raw pixels before uploading to the GPU, DDS/KTX2 textures are uploaded directly in their compressed form. This means they use 4–8× less VRAM than uncompressed textures and load faster because there is no CPU-side decompression step.
DDS is the standard on PC (DirectX). KTX2 is the Khronos/OpenGL/Vulkan equivalent and is the required format for glTF 3D models. Game engines handle compression during asset import — you provide PNG or EXR source textures, and the build pipeline generates DDS or KTX2 automatically. You rarely need to author these formats manually.
Format Comparison Summary
- PNG — Lossless, large files, universal support. Best for archival, inter-tool exchange, and maps requiring precision.
- JPEG — Lossy, small files, no alpha. Best for diffuse textures with soft detail where size matters.
- WebP — Lossy or lossless, smallest web files, alpha support. Best for web delivery.
- EXR — Float precision, linear color, huge files. Best for PBR data maps and production pipelines.
- DDS/KTX2 — GPU-native compression, fast loading, reduced VRAM. Best for real-time engines.
All textures generated on Texturize export as PNG for maximum compatibility. Convert to WebP for web use with any image tool, or let your game engine’s build pipeline handle conversion to DDS or KTX2 automatically. Try the Concrete or Metal generator and experiment with exporting at different resolutions.