What is TIFF File Format? How to Open TIFF Files ?

👤 Diwas Poudel 🕒 22 May 2022 📁 TECH

What is TIFF File Format?
Characteristics of TIFF Image Format
What is the TIFF file Used For?
Advantages of TIFF File
Disadvantages of TIFF File
Application Open TIFF Files

What is TIFF File Format?

TIFF(Tagged Image File Format) is an old image file format developed by Aldus and Microsoft Corporations with its initial release in 1986. Later merged with Adobe Systems.It is popular in internet media with .tiff or .tif file extension.It follows lossless file compression which preserved all original details and color of the image.

TIFF format is one of the highest quality, stable, well-documented, feature-rich uncompressed formats for saving raster images so it is popularly used in photography and desktop publishing, scanning, faxing, word processing, and optical character recognition, Geographic Information systems like GeoTiff.

fig. TIFF File Logo

For several years, TIFF has been the standard file format for many scanners and digital imaging software. As scanners became more powerful and desktop computer storage became larger, TIFF evolved to be able to capture both grayscale and color images. TIFF, along with JPEG and PNG, is the most prevalent format for low-color images today.

TIFF is a flexible and customizable file format that stores all image data in one file, including headers, tags, size specifications, image data layout, image compression, and picture geometry specification.

Actually, the Image is edited by creating various tags, layers, and transparency. If you save those images in a tiff file then when you open it later you can edit each and every layer of the image that we cannot do with jpeg, BMP, and png images.

Raster Images uses a grid of pixels(small rectangular color ), arranged in a grid to form an image.

source: ArcGIS page

If we zoom out the image, we will see a grid of color as shown above.

Characteristics of TIFF Image Format

Supports Lossless Compression (Compression in which image is reduced without losing any image quality or information)
Device and processor independent file format
Can handle very high-quality images.
Can save transparencies of the images.
Multiple high-quality images can be stored in a single TIFF file, allowing it to be used to represent multi-page documents.

What is the TIFF file Used For?

Actually, beginners and normal people even do not know about the TIFF file. And if they have it in their system then will be nervous to open it thinking it is a virus. In the general world, we are not using TIFF files. We are only working with jpg, png, gif, and BMP images. It's popular among artistic people like Photographers, graphics designers, geoengineers, medical experts, Desktop publishers, Scientists, etc.

Printing Media like newspapers, and magazines need to print out accurate and high-quality news in large format, without any drop in image quality so they prefer.

Photographers take landscapes images of hills and cities, and valleys and store them as tiff files or raw files.

Scientists used it to save scientific images so that all data are preserved wisely. Like good for storing 3-D Time Series as a series of Tiffs. It is also used as a master file in Digital Image Processing.

Also read: What is dat file? How to open it? When to use it?

In the medical industry, radiographs are usually saved as .tiffs or DICONDE when acquiring a CT study.

Advantages of TIFF File

Some of the application of the TIFF File is as follows:
1 TIFF supports lossless compression.

2 TIFF format preserves the quality of images without any loss.

3 Major OS supports TIFF format and has inbuilt software to open it.

4 TIFF Files allow MultiPage Document Saving so that if you have multiple page documents then that can be saved into a single .tiff file.

5 TIFF file is a device and processor independent file format and can be transferred between devices.

6 TIFF support variable resolution images.

Variable Resolution image has different resolutions for different portion of images.

7 TIFF is expandable, so new improving specifications can be added without compromising download compatibility.

8 TIFF uses Tags so searching text inside TIFF images is easier. This facility is not provided in JPG, or PNG image format.

9 TIFF does not only support RGB but a number of other color spaces like CMYK, YCbCr, Bilevel(B/W), Grayscale, Palette-Color,True Color, Indexed Color, Greyscale with alpha, True color with alpha, and many more, making TIFF a suitable format to store print, film, and television images.

Also read: What is a CSV file? When to use it? How to open it?

Disadvantages of TIFF File

1 TIFF file size is big than the general available JPEG, PNG, and WEBP images.

Here, for a demo, I have taken a small size image generated by MSPaint with tiff and png extension. Comparing those two we found out tiff file of a larger size than the png file.

fig. Just a simple demonstration showing tiff file has a large size than the png file for the same image content

2 Takes time for transferring TIFF files on slow internet because of the large file size.

3 If you have any TIFF file reader then readers must read all the tags to interpret and assemble the information for processing the image data. So, if a large number of tags are used then reading may take time.

4 Also TIFF files are not used in Web and Websites. Firebox, Chrome cannot open those files correctly and does not open them.

Application Open TIFF Files

So, Most graphics applications like Photoshop, MSPaint, Adobe InDesign, etc, desktop publishing applications, and word processing applications understand them.

Inbuilt application to Open TIFF Files

Operating System	Application
Windows OS	Ms. Paint, Microsoft Photos, Microsoft Windows Photo Viewer
Mac OS	Apple Preview App, Apple Photos
Linus OS	Image Viewer

Application opening.TIFF files in Windows OS.

This application has to be downloaded to Windows OS to open it. Applications are as follows:

Application

Adobe InDesign

Photoshop

Picassa

Adobe Illustrator

Ms Word

Corel Draw Graphics Suite

File Viewer Plus

Also read: How to open a .dat file in Excel?

Application opening.TIFF files in MAC OS

This application has to be downloaded in MAC OS to open it. Applications are as follows:

Application

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Lightroom

Adobe Illustrator

CorelDraw

MacPhun ColorStrokes

Picturama

Application opening.TIFF files in Linux OS

This application has to be downloaded in MAC OS to open tiff file extensions. Applications are as follows:

Application

GIMP

Document Viewer

LibreOffice Draw

LibreOffice Impress

PIX

Applications opening .tiff files in Web

Edge Browsers and Safari are able to open the .tiff file. In Chrome and Firefox, Opera these features are dropped.

Applications opening .tiff files in iOS

Apple Photos

Applications opening .tiff files in Android

File Viewer for Android

Applications opening .tiff files in Cloud Storage

Google Drive

One Drive

Opening .tiff file in Windows Viewer

The steps are as follows.

1 Right-click on the tiff image.

2 Click on Open With

3 Click on 'Windows Photo Viewer'

Applications opening .tiff files using Online Tools

If non of the above application helps you then you can try online tools like groupdocs

How to open tiff files in AutoCAD?

1 Open Autocad.
2 Goto Insert Tab
3 Within Reference Panel Section, Select Attach Option.
4 Select Attach from Insert tab to import TIFF File.

attach-autocad

How to open TIF files with CorelDraw?

CorelDraw is a popular vector graphics editor. To open TIFF files in Coreldraw follow the below steps:

Open CorelDraw Application
Click on File and select the "Open" menu
Select your desired TIFF files.
Click on Open.

open-tiff-file-coreldraw

FAQ

What is the browser compatibility of the TIFF File?

Ans: TIFF is only useful as a download format, as no browsers currently integrate support for it.

What is the MIME Type for TIFF File?

Ans: MIME Type for TIFF File is image/tiff

What is a dip measurement?

Ans: Print Media image resolution is measured in dots per inch(DPI). Print media graphics images will be of high-resolution range from around 300 to 1200 dpi and upwards. When these graphics are saved in a tiff file then each and every detail and texture can be captured. If you save this image in png, or jpeg format then it can not save each and every detail and layer of images.

Note: 1200 dpi means printed images have a maximum of 1200 tiny dots of ink per inch.

How to send a .tiff file over the internet?

Ans: If you have a large .tiff file then first of all compress it using Winzip,7-zip, or using any compression software, and then send a compressed version of the file.

Is TIFF good for printing?

Ans: TIFF is good for printing because of its lossless format. They produce high-quality images which are good for printing photos..tiff is popular in the publishing world and photography.

Can Windows 10 open TIFF files?
Ans: Windows 10 inbuilt applications like Windows Photo Viewer can view and open TIFF files.

Do TIFF files lose quality?
Ans: TIFF files are lossless so you will not lose any quality of TIFF files after saving and editing the file.

Which to Choose? RAW or TIFF

Ans: In simple, we can say, You use the image to export it as a RAW, for your own needs. If you are giving it to someone else, use a TIFF.

Can TIFF files be edited?
Ans: If you have tiff files then you can edit them. Every image editing application cannot edit tiff files. Some of the popular applications that can edit TIFF files are Photoshop and GIMP.

Different between TIF and TIFF files?

Ans: There is no difference between TIF and TIFF files. You can change the .tif file to the .tiff file extension.No problem with the quality.TIF uses the 8.3 naming convention used in the legacy file system and TIFF in the newer file system.

Researches from: wikipedia