Game texture converter: PNG, JPG and BMP to TGA (and back)
Older engines, mod tools and asset pipelines still want TGA. Newer tools export PNG. This page converts between them without touching the alpha channel or the pixel data.
Why TGA is still everywhere in games
Targa is uncompressed (or losslessly RLE-compressed), stores a real 8-bit alpha channel, and has been read by every engine since the 1990s — Source, Unreal, idTech, Unity's legacy importers and most mod SDKs. When a tool says 'texture must be .tga', it usually means it wants uncompressed 32-bit RGBA.
PNG is also lossless with alpha, so PNG to TGA is a pure container change: nothing is resampled and transparency survives exactly. JPG to TGA works but cannot invent an alpha channel a JPG never had.
Alpha, power-of-two and other pitfalls
We preserve the alpha channel when the source has one and write 32-bit TGA; sources without alpha become 24-bit. If your engine rejects the file, the usual cause is a non-power-of-two size (say 1000×1000 instead of 1024×1024), not the format — resize before converting.
PSD source files are flattened to their composite image. Layers, masks and adjustment layers are not exported separately; flatten in your editor first if the composite is not what you want.
Batch conversion for mod packs
Drop the whole texture folder on the converter. Each file becomes its own job, names are preserved, and you get every result as it finishes — hundreds of small textures take about a minute.
Going the other way (TGA to PNG) is the quickest way to get engine textures into a browser, a wiki, or a Discord message.
Texture conversions
How to do it
- 1Add your textures
Drag PNG, JPG, BMP or PSD files onto the page — an entire folder at once is fine.
- 2Choose TGA (or PNG)
Pick the target your tool asks for. No other options are needed for a faithful conversion.
- 3Download
Files keep their names with the new extension. Everything is deleted after 24 hours.
Frequently asked questions
Does the alpha channel survive PNG to TGA?
Yes. A PNG with transparency becomes a 32-bit TGA with the same alpha values, unchanged.
Can you convert DDS?
Not at the moment. DDS is a compressed GPU format (DXT/BC) and needs a block-compression step we do not offer yet. Export PNG from your DDS tool and convert from there.
Is the TGA compressed?
We write uncompressed TGA, which every engine and importer accepts. Files are larger than PNG but load faster in tools that read them directly.
Why does my engine still reject the texture?
Check the dimensions: most engines want powers of two (256, 512, 1024, 2048). Some also require the image to be flipped vertically; try the tool's import flip option.