Image Inspector
Probe an image to see its format, dimensions and metadata.
Overview
The Image Inspector probes an uploaded file and reports its container format, dimensions, colour depth, channel count, declared colour profile and any embedded metadata blocks. Drop in a mystery file and the tool reads only the header bytes it needs to summarise the asset without fully decoding the pixels.
It is the right place to start when troubleshooting a CMS upload error ("unsupported format"), when verifying that an exported asset actually carries the colour profile you expected, or when inspecting an image file format that arrived from an unfamiliar source. It also doubles as a quick way to learn the difference between baseline and progressive JPEG.
How it works
Format detection runs against magic numbers in the first few bytes: PNG starts with 89 50 4E 47 0D 0A 1A 0A, JPEG begins with FF D8 FF, GIF with GIF87a or GIF89a, WebP carries RIFF...WEBP, BMP starts with 42 4D, and TIFF begins with II*\0 or MM\0* depending on byte order.
Once the format is known the parser reads the structural headers — IHDR for PNG, SOF0/SOF2 markers for JPEG, the logical screen descriptor for GIF, the VP8 header for WebP — to surface width, height, bit depth, channel count and compression. Ancillary structures (EXIF block size, ICC profile length, PNG ancillary chunk list) are reported as a one-line summary each.
Examples
File: portrait.jpg
Format: JPEG (baseline, Huffman)
Dimensions: 4000 x 6000
Bit depth: 8 bits/channel, RGB
EXIF: present (2.1 KB)
ICC profile: sRGB v4 (560 bytes)
File: artwork.png
Format: PNG (RGBA, deflate level 8)
Dimensions: 1920 x 1080
Chunks: IHDR, sRGB, IDAT (x14), iTXt (x2), IEND
FAQ
Why does the inspector report a different size from my OS?
The OS shows the file's byte count on disk. The inspector reports the pixel dimensions stored inside the file header. Both are useful — they answer different questions.
Does it actually decode the image?
Only as far as it needs to. For most reports the inspector reads kilobytes from the start of the file rather than decompressing every pixel, which keeps the tool fast on multi-hundred-megabyte panoramas.
Can it inspect HEIC or AVIF?
HEIC and AVIF use the ISO BMFF container; the tool reads the ftyp and meta boxes to surface dimensions and brand but does not fully decode the bitstream.
Will it tell me if a file is corrupted?
The inspector reports a structural error if any header check fails — a wrong CRC, a missing marker, a truncated chunk list. Pixel-level corruption inside otherwise valid containers is not detected.
Does it run on animated GIFs?
Yes — the report includes frame count, the global colour table size, and the cumulative delay if you want to know the animation length.