Apple’s default still-photo format on recent iPhones is HEIC (HEIF). It is efficient on the phone. It is still a nuisance on a Windows PC behind a high-street print counter, on some CMS uploads, and in older Word versions. The usual internet advice is ‘upload to a converter’. That advice is how wedding albums end up on machines you will never see.
This guide uses a real job shape: a Saturday garden ceremony in Kent, 184 HEIC files, a Monday print slot, a Windows 10 PC that showed blank thumbnails. The couple did not need a colour-managed press pipeline. They needed JPGs the shop’s software would ingest, without putting the day on a random server.
Why HEIC appears, and why JPG is still the shop format
HEIC stores a HEVC-compressed image (and sometimes a sequence). Windows has improved support, but a print RIP from 2018 does not care. JPG is universally accepted for 6×4 and 8×6 silver-halide or dye-sub prints. WebP would have been smaller and is better for a website; the shop’s software did not list WebP in the import dialog. Match the downstream system, not the blog post that says ‘AVIF is the future’.
Walkthrough on ToolsGuru’s image converter
On a laptop that already had the photos (AirDropped or a USB-C card reader — both stay local), open the Image Converter. Drop the folder or a manageable batch. Start with 30 files if you are on 8 GB of RAM; a phone tab will not enjoy 184 four-thousand-pixel images at once.
Choose JPG. Set quality around 85–90 if the destination is a 6×4 print. Quality 60 looks fine on Instagram and ugly on skin in a 6×4. This job used 88. Convert. Download the ZIP. Open three files at random on the Windows PC: a group shot in shade, a white dress in sun, and a dark suit. If the dress blows out, raise quality or stop shrinking. If the file is 8 MB and the shop’s USB copy is slow, lower quality a little on the bulk and keep a handful of hero frames higher.
- Keep the original HEIC album on a disk you control. Conversion is not a backup strategy.
- Filename stems usually survive (`IMG_4021.heic` → `IMG_4021.jpg`). That matters when a couple says ‘number 4021, please’.
- Canvas conversion often strips GPS EXIF. For a wedding that can be desirable. If you needed the GPS, check a sample before you delete HEICs.
When you should not use a browser converter
If the next step is a magazine cover with a specified ICC profile, this is the wrong tool. Use a photo editor with colour management. If the files are RAW (.DNG from the Pro camera pipeline you actually needed), convert in photography software first. If a contract says ‘no web applications’, honour it even though this page does not upload — legal teams write blunt rules on purpose.
If the only computer is the shop’s public kiosk, do not log into iCloud Photos on it. Use a USB stick you brought.
Related jobs on the same album
Resizing: the shop wanted a max edge of 4000 px. Some 48 MP frames were larger. Use the Image Resizer with aspect lock after conversion, or before if you are memory-bound. Cropping: a 1:1 crop for a thank-you card is the Image Cropper, not a squeeze in the converter. Compression: if email is the only path and the ZIP is 400 MB, compress hero JPGs individually rather than emailing HEIC.
Tools used in this guide
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