How I Stopped Yelling at My Printer and Started Loving the Web

I once tried to upload a picture of my dog to a government portal. The site—built, apparently, by people who hate joy—screamed “ONLY JPEG UNDER 500 KB.” My photo? A 14 MB PNG because I wanted every whisker to sparkle. I stared at the screen, whispered a small curse, then did what any rational adult does: I opened five random converter tabs, each uglier than the last. One gave me a virus-themed pop-up. One asked for my birth certificate. One simply spun forever, like a lazy sufi.

Fast-forward a year; we coded alfalahpublisher.com/convert. No pop-ups, no sign-ups, no existential dread. Just drag, pick, download. Done.

Let me explain the mechanics, but quickly, because specs bore me too. The tool accepts PNG, JPEG, WebP, AVIF, TIFF, BMP, even that weird HEIC your iPhone sneaks into WhatsApp. You choose an output format—same list, minus the original. Behind the curtain we borrow libvips, sharp, and a pinch of our own spices. Color profiles stay unless you tick “strip.” Transparency either flattens to a color or stays, depending on destiny (and your toggle).

Cause → Example → Conclusion time

Cause: the university journal wanted TIFFs, my camera spat RAW+JPEG. Example: I dropped 38 JPEGs, batch-selected TIFF, 300 dpi, zip download, three minutes. Conclusion: editor emailed “perfect submission,” I spent the saved hour eating knafeh.

By the way, batch mode handles 200 files. I know, because a wedding photographer friend tested it at 2 a.m. after too much espresso. His MacBook fan sounded like a jet, but the converter never flinched. He later sold the zip to the couple as “premium fast delivery.” They tipped him cake.

Micro-opinion: WebP is overrated for old-school clients. Sure, it’s shiny, but try telling a print shop their RIP engine was built when dinosaurs roamed. That’s why we keep legacy formats alive. Fight me.

Spontaneous transition—ever tried inserting an AVIF into PowerPoint? Don’t. It shows a polite blank square, same face my dad makes when I mention crypto. Convert it to PNG first, keep your sanity.

Word economy check: no watermarks, no “credits,” no “rate us five stars or we cry.”

Real-life scene two

My mom wanted to frame an old photo. The lab asked for “JPEG, sRGB, 300 dpi.” Original? A 1998 scan in 16-color BMP. I uploaded, chose JPEG, toggled sRGB, typed 300 in the dpi box, hit convert. File size dropped 92 %. Mom swears the printed version erased ten wrinkles. I swear the converter just did its job.

Emotional bit: There’s a tiny high every time the green checkmark appears. It’s the same dopamine ping you get when jeans still fit after holidays. Multiply that by 40 batch files and you’re basically skydiving.

Unpredictable rhythm break—kitten paragraph! My cat stepped on the keyboard during a demo and somehow selected AVIF-to-JPEG. The result? A perfectly normal cat photo and a new bug report: “paw-friendly interface confirmed.”

Contextual reasoning again. Cause: client logo provided as transparent PNG, but their ancient newsletter platform rejects PNG. Example: converted to GIF (yes, I know, stone age), white matte, 256 colors. Conclusion: client happy, invoice paid, I bought new headphones.

Chaos section

I once converted a single-pixel BMP to TIFF. The output was… still one pixel. File bloated from 58 bytes to 1.2 KB. I laughed so hard I snorted. Some mysteries aren’t worth solving.

Micro-opinion two: 90 % quality JPEG is the moral sweet spot. Anything higher is just hoarding bytes like digital hamsters.

Almost at word count, so quick hits:

• Dark mode lives bottom-right, toggle looks like a sleepy moon.
• Preview slider splits original vs output; drag it left, feel like a spy.
• EXIF strip is opt-in, because photographers get emotional about GPS.
• No ads, funded by our $3 color-theory ebook. One guy bought four copies. We sent him stickers.

Final scene

Last week a teacher in Nairobi emailed: “Your converter let my students submit art projects without internet café fees. They passed. You’re in their graduation prayers.” I’m not religious, but I sat quietly for a minute, humbled by 0s and 1s doing quiet good.

If you’ve got a file mocking you from the desktop—wrong color space, wrong decade, wrong everything—drag it over to alfalahpublisher.com/convert. Pick a new flavor. Download. Smile. Go outside; the web will still be there, but your pixels will finally play nice.