TGA to AVIF Converter

Encoding: the TGA uses uncompressed or run-length encoded (RLE); AVIF uses lossy or lossless AV1 intra-frame coding, and the download is an AVIF encoded with libavif (AV1) compiled to WebAssembly, at the quality you choose.

Bit depth: 8, 15, 16, 24 or 32 bits per pixel in the TGA; AVIF allows 8, 10 or 12 bits per channel, and the AVIF written here has 8 bits per channel.

Colour: RGB, greyscale or a colour map in the TGA; AVIF supports YUV 4:4:4 or 4:2:0 with BT.709, Display P3 or BT.2020 primaries, HDR curves possible, written here as 8-bit sRGB.

Transparency: the TGA stores it as the fourth byte of each 32-bit pixel (or one bit in 16-bit files); the AVIF keeps it as an auxiliary AV1 image stored beside the colour image.

Metadata: the TGA can carry an image ID field and an optional extension area with author and date; AVIF can carry EXIF, XMP and ICC stored as HEIF items, but nothing is copied across.

TGA is a simple raster format still widely used for game textures and 3D rendering pipelines because it stores alpha channels reliably and loads fast.

A TGA has an 18-byte header (ID length, colour map type, image type 2 for true colour or 10 for RLE, origin, size, bits per pixel and a descriptor byte whose bits give the alpha depth and whether rows run top-down), then the pixels; version 2 files end with a 'TRUEVISION-XFILE' footer.

TGA files usually come from game engines, 3D renderers and texture painting tools.

AVIF uses the AV1 video codec for still images. It is the most efficient widely supported format, often half the size of JPEG, with HDR, wide colour and transparency, but encoding is slow.

An AVIF is a HEIF file, the same ISO base media boxes as MP4, with the brand 'avif'. The picture is an AV1 key frame stored as an image item, and its size, colour and pixel layout are item properties.

AVIF is the better choice for maximum compression on modern websites, while TGA suits game textures and 3D software.

AVIF strengths: Often 50% smaller than JPEG; Excellent at low quality settings; Transparency, HDR and 10/12-bit colour. Drawbacks to weigh: Slow to encode, especially on phones; Not supported by some older software; Can smooth away fine texture at low quality.