Convert HEIC to PNG for Photoshop and Design Tools (Free, No Upload)

A client sends you iPhone photos for a layout, a mood board, or a social asset. You open Photoshop or Figma, drag the files in, and get an error: the format is not supported. The photos are HEIC, and most design tools still do not open HEIC natively. The fix is a conversion — but which target format, and how you convert, matters more than most designers expect.

For design work, the right target is almost always PNG, not JPG. Here is why, and how to convert without uploading client assets to a stranger's server.

Why PNG, not JPG, for design work

JPG is a lossy format: every save discards detail to shrink the file. That is fine for a final export, but it is a bad idea for a working file. If you convert HEIC to JPG, then edit, then export JPG again, you stack two rounds of lossy compression on top of each other. Edges soften, gradients band, and fine text gets halos around it.

PNG is lossless. Converting HEIC to PNG preserves every pixel the phone captured, so your working file starts clean. You can crop, retouch, mask, and composite without worrying that the format itself is degrading the image underneath you. Export JPG at the very end, once, from the finished design — not at the beginning of the process.

PNG also plays better with design tooling. Figma, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Canva all open PNG without complaint. Layer masks, selections, and blend modes behave exactly as expected. And when you need to hand a file to a developer or a printer, PNG is a format nobody has to ask questions about.

Step 1: Check what you actually received

Before converting, confirm the files really are HEIC and check their dimensions. On a Mac, select a file and press Space for Quick Look; on Windows, right-click and check Properties. An iPhone photo is typically 4032 × 3024 pixels or larger, which gives you plenty of room for print and web work alike.

Watch out for two traps. First, Live Photos: the still frame converts fine, but the motion and audio components do not survive a still-image conversion — if the client wanted the motion, ask for the video separately. Second, burst sequences: clients often send five near-identical frames. Pick the sharpest one and convert only that, or your artboard fills up with duplicates.

Step 2: Convert HEIC to PNG in your browser

The common advice is to install a converter app, but most of those apps either watermark the output, cap the batch size, or upload client photos to a server. For client work — product shots, interiors, portraits, anything under NDA — uploading to a random server is a confidentiality risk that is easy to avoid.

Instead, you can convert HEIC to PNG for design tools entirely in your browser. The conversion runs locally on your device, so the files are never uploaded to any server. Select your HEIC photos, convert, and download PNGs ready to drop into your tool of choice. Full disclosure: I'm the developer of FileOnTap, and I built it for exactly this kind of moment — client assets that should never leave the machine you are working on.

One practical tip: convert one photo first and open it in your design tool before converting the rest. A thirty-second check that the color and orientation are right saves re-doing an entire batch.

Step 3: Import and verify in your design tool

Drop the PNG into Photoshop, Figma, or your tool of choice and verify three things:

1. Color — iPhone photos use the Display P3 color space, which is wider than the sRGB most web work targets. If your PNG looks duller or more saturated than expected after import, check your document's color profile settings before blaming the conversion.
2. Orientation — phone photos sometimes import sideways. If yours did, rotate the PNG once and move on; do not rotate inside a half-finished composition.
3. Resolution — confirm the imported dimensions match the original HEIC. A PNG that arrived at half resolution means something in the chain downscaled it, and you want to catch that before you build a layout around it.

Then work normally: the PNG is now just a regular lossless image, indistinguishable from a PNG that came from any other source.

A note on keeping originals

Keep the original HEIC files alongside your project. They are the highest-quality archival copies at roughly half the storage of an equivalent JPG, and future tools will open them natively. Convert copies for production work — PNG for editing, JPG for final delivery — and let the originals stay untouched. When a client asks for a re-export six months from now, you will be glad the source files are still there.

HEIC is a good capture format. It just is not a design format. With the workflow above — check, convert locally to PNG, verify on import — you can take iPhone photos straight into professional design work without installing software or uploading client assets anywhere.