How to Convert image file types quickly, easily and free forever.

Welcome back to "Just One Small Thing". My aim is to share short and simple tips that you can implement straight away to start improving your small business today. Would that be useful?

This is another one of those quick and easy things to do which takes a while to explain. Sorry.

Have you ever wanted or needed to convert an image file from one file type to another? Maybe you don't have the software on your computer to open certain file types? Maybe you just need to use a different file type in an application? Maybe you need something that loads quicker on the web?

There are a load of different image file converters available on the web but I'm just going to introduce you to one that I've recently learnt about. I already have professional software available to me that will convert image file type but the Pixelied Free Image Converter is quicker and easier to use and it's completely free forever.

You start with that very simple screen above. Then you click on "Choose file type" next to the "Convert" button to choose the file type you want to convert from.

There are 7 different file types you can convert from which cover the most common file types you'll have. If someone has sent you a WEBP, an SVG, an AVIF or a TIFF you may not have the software on your device to open it. This is one of the use cases for this converter. You don't have to open the file to convert it.

Choose your file type to convert from

Because I've chosen a TIFF you can see that the headline changes to "Free TIFF Converter" and the word TIFF appears in the "Convert" button.

Now you have to choose the file type that you'd like to convert your file to.

Now you can see you have a choice of 8 different file types one of which is Base64 which is best left alone. You almost certainly will never need it.

The one that I'll be using for this use case is WEBP. This file type is designed to be very small and load quickly on the internet. It's a really good file type to speed up your website which as you may know Google uses as a ranking factor these days. It also makes it less easy for people to steal your images by right clicking because they won't be able to open the file :-)

The other useful one these days is SVG or "Scalable Vector Graphic". A vector graphic is a file that does not rely on pixels to create an image. So, no matter how big you make it the image will still look sharp and not pixelated. That's really useful for adding your logo to a roller banner or massive outdoor sign. I'll save that for another article :-)

Click on the big blue "Choose files" button or drag and drop a load of files into the box and then you'll see this.

You can chose multiple files to convert at once but for this use case I'm just choosing the TIFF version of my Business Growth Club logo that was provided to me many years ago by a brilliant graphic designer called John Sherwood from Travis Bead.

Next you click on the "Start Conversion" button

You then get the option to download your newly converted file. In my case the 4mb, 4,000kb TIFF file has been reduced in file size to a 53kb WEBP file at the same physical size which was 2,394 by 347 pixels which is bigger than I would need.

As you can see in the picture above there is an "Edit WEBP" button available. Click on that and you suddenly get a whole load of new and useful options including the ability to reduce the physical size (number of pixels) of your newly converted image.

You can even change the user interface to dark mode

So I reduced the physical size of my new WEBP to 1,000 pixels by 145 pixels which is more than enough to display well on a web page at the size it would be needed and that brought the file size down to 22kb, 185 times small than the original image.

Sadly, I can't show you the converted image in this LinkedIn newsletter article. They only allow jpegs, gifs or png. However, doesn't that just demonstrating another use case.

I'm sorry this took so long to explain. This tool is entirely web based so I have it saved in my Google Bookmarks so I can get to it much more quickly than firing up my professional software. It is connected to a paid tool called Pixelied which is a really good competitor to Canva. I bought the pro version of that tool for $40 for life from AppSumo which offers a whole range of great lifetime deals for people who are fed up with monthly subscriptions.

Have a go at this and let me know how you get on. Good luck.