Free webp to jpg
EN
Image MIME Reference
MacPaint

MacPaint Image

image/x-macpaint
VS

Portable Network Graphics (Legacy MIME)

image/x-png
PNG

A complete technical comparison of MacPaint Image and Portable Network Graphics (Legacy MIME) — covering compression, feature support, browser compatibility, magic bytes, and when to choose each format.

PNG wins on browser support

Feature Support

Feature MacPaint PNG
Transparency (Alpha) ✕ No Yes
Animation Support ✕ No ✕ No
Progressive Loading ✕ No Yes
HDR Support ✕ No Yes
EXIF Metadata ✕ No Yes
ICC Color Profile ✕ No Yes
MacPaint Image
image/x-macpaint
Extension
.mac.pntg.pnt.macp
Container Raw pixel payload with a 512-byte pattern header
Compression PackBits (Run-Length Encoding)
Algorithm
PackBits (Apple RLE)
Color Depth 1-bit (Monochrome)
Developed by Apple Computer, Inc. (Bill Atkinson)
Released 1984
Magic Bytes
None (Relies on classic Mac OS 'PNTG' OSType)
Full MacPaint reference →
Portable Network Graphics (Legacy MIME)
image/x-png
Extension
.png
Container PNG Chunk Structure (IHDR, IDAT, IEND)
Compression Deflate (Lossless)
Algorithm
Deflate (LZ77)
Color Depth 1-bit to 16-bit (Grayscale), 8-bit (Indexed Palette), 24-bit (True Color), 32-bit (True Color with Alpha), 48-bit (High Color), 64-bit (High Color with Alpha)
Developed by PNG Development Group
Released 1996
Magic Bytes
89 50 4E 47 0D 0A 1A 0A
Full PNG reference →

Browser Support Comparison

Browser MacPaint PNG
Chrome Chrome
✕
✓ 1
Firefox Firefox
✕
✓ 1
Safari Safari
✕
✓ 1
Edge Edge
✕
✓ 12
IE IE (Legacy)
✕
✓
MacPaint

MacPaint Strengths

  • Profoundly historically significant as the format that introduced millions to the concept of bitmap digital painting
  • Extremely simple PackBits compression makes it easy for emulator developers or archivists to write parsers from scratch in under an hour
Limitations
  • Severely limited: strictly black and white, and hard-locked to exactly 576 x 720 pixels
  • Lack of standard magic bytes makes programmatic file sniffing unreliable on modern filesystems without relying on the file extension
  • Completely obsolete and unsupported by modern web browsers or consumer image viewers
PNG

PNG Strengths

  • The underlying format provides flawless, lossless compression and perfect 8-bit alpha channel transparency
  • Universally supported by every modern operating system, image editor, and web browser
Limitations
  • The 'image/x-png' string is an obsolete vendor quirk that forces backend developers to write redundant normalization logic in file upload scripts
  • If left unnormalized, strict MIME validators or content security policies on modern systems may incorrectly reject valid PNG files

When to choose which format

MacPaint
Use MacPaint when…
  • Historical Apple Macintosh Archival
  • Early 1980s Digital Art Preservation
  • Retro UI/UX Academic Research
PNG
Use PNG when…
  • Legacy Internet Explorer File Uploads
  • Older ASP/PHP Web Applications
  • Lossless Web Graphics

More comparisons

MacPaint vs ACES → PNG vs ACES → MacPaint vs APNG → PNG vs APNG → MacPaint vs AVCI → PNG vs AVCI → MacPaint vs AVCS → PNG vs AVCS → MacPaint vs AVIF → PNG vs AVIF → All comparisons →
Share this comparison