Merge PNG

How to merge PNG files

It works as a PNG merger for icons, logos, stickers, screenshots and game art: anything where a clean edge or a see-through background matters.

Transparent backgrounds stay transparent

Icons, logos, stickers and cut-out product shots are often saved as PNG because PNG can store transparency: parts of the image with no colour at all. When you combine PNG files here, those parts stay transparent in the merged file. The preview draws them on a grey and white checkerboard, the way design apps show empty space. The checkerboard is only in the preview, not in the file.

The background setting decides what fills the rest of the canvas: the gaps between images and the empty space around smaller ones. Leave it on Transparent to keep the whole merged PNG see-through, so it can sit on any colour in a slide, a web page or a design file. Pick White, Black or Grey when the image will be seen on its own. Some chat apps convert images to JPG when you send them, and transparent areas then turn black or white, which can look like a mistake.

Soft edges survive too. A logo with a drop shadow or a sticker with a feathered outline has pixels that are only partly transparent. They are copied as they are, so the edges stay smooth on any background.

Make a sprite sheet from PNG files

A sprite sheet is one image that holds many small ones in a grid, such as the frames of a character animation or a set of icons. A game or a web page loads the one file and shows a single cell at a time.

Put the frames in order first: the grid fills left to right, then top to bottom. Choose Grid and set the number of columns. The tool suggests a near-square grid, such as 4 columns for 16 images, and you can change it to any number up to the number of images. Set the gap to 0 so the frames touch, and keep the background on Transparent.

Match widths scales every image to the width of the narrowest one. Keep original sizes leaves each image at its own size. Each column is then as wide as the widest image, each row as tall as the tallest image in it, and smaller images sit in the middle of their cell.

For a sheet that a game engine can slice, start with frames that are all the same size. Then every cell is exactly one frame, and the sheet size is easy to work out: 64 × 64 frames in 8 columns make a sheet 512 pixels wide. The tool does not pad frames to one size or write out a file listing where each frame sits, so do that in your editor if your engine needs it.

Screenshots: why PNG keeps text sharp

Computers and most phones save screenshots as PNG, and for good reason. Screenshots are full of text, thin lines and flat colour, and JPG compression handles exactly those badly: it leaves faint speckles and smudges around each letter, most visible on a white background. PNG stores every pixel exactly, so the text stays crisp however far you zoom in.

So when you merge PNG files that are screenshots (a long chat, an order confirmation, a set of settings screens), keep the result as PNG. Choose Vertical, leave Match widths on and the gap at 0, and the screenshots join into one long image you can read from top to bottom. Screenshots from the same phone are already the same width, so nothing is scaled.

Mixing PNG and JPG

You can combine PNG and JPG files in one merge, and the result is a PNG. A JPG has no transparency, so a JPG photo always comes in as a solid rectangle, corners and all. Transparent parts of your PNG files stay transparent, and so do the gaps and the empty space around smaller images, unless you choose a background colour.

A JPG photo next to a transparent logo will therefore have see-through space around the logo and none around the photo. If that looks odd where the image is going, choose White or another background so the whole thing reads as one picture.

JPG images are not compressed again inside the PNG, so they keep the quality they already had.

PNG or JPG for the merged image

PNG is lossless: the file holds exactly the pixels that were drawn. JPG is lossy: it throws away detail the eye is least likely to miss, and in return the files are much smaller. For text, screenshots, logos and anything with transparency, PNG looks better. For ordinary photos, a high-quality JPG looks the same to most people at a fraction of the size.

The catch is file size. A merged PNG of a few phone photos can run to tens of megabytes, because PNG keeps every grain of noise in a photo. The same merge saved as a JPG is usually several times smaller.

Use this page when you need transparency or sharp text. When you are combining ordinary photos for a form, a chat or an upload limit, merge JPG files on the homepage instead: the result is a smaller JPG, and there is a "Smaller file" setting for strict limits.

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