TIFF
TIFF, formerly known as Tag(ged) Image File Format, is an image format capable of storing multiple high quality images in a single file.
A TIFF image may be uncompressed or use a compression scheme internally. Two of the most widely used compression schemes in TIFF files are lossless, including LZW and, for bitonal images CCITT Group 4, as used for facsimile transmission [fax]. JPEG baseline DCT-based lossy compression is also used.
Several subtypes and extensions of TIFF exist, including TIFF/EP, TIFF/IT, DNG, GeoTIFF, TIFF-FX, and BigTIFF. Multi-image TIFFs may represent sequences of images (such as scanned pages of a document), image tiles, or different versions of the same image, for example Pyramid TIFFs that incorporate images at different resolutions (often tiled). Some software that can read and display a TIFF file may only open the primary image.
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Identification
TIFF files begin with bytes 4D 4D 00 2A (big-endian), or 49 49 2A 00 (little-endian).
This does not account for BigTIFF format, which you may or may not consider to be a kind of TIFF.
File signatures
Some TIFF-like formats use a different file signature (the first few bytes of the file) to help identify them. Some of the known signatures are listed here.
(For formats lacking a public specification, this table may include a hypothetical signature for a byte order that has not been observed.)
| Big-endian signature | Little-endian signature | Format |
|---|---|---|
4d 4d 00 2a |
49 49 2a 00 |
TIFF |
4d 4d 00 2b |
49 49 2b 00 |
BigTIFF |
4d 4d 00 55 |
49 49 55 00 |
Panasonic RAW/RW2 |
49 49 bc 01 |
JPEG XR | |
49 49 4e 31 |
NIFF (Navy Image File Format) | |
4d 4d 43 52 |
49 49 52 43 |
DNG camera profile |
4d 4d 4f 52 |
49 49 52 4f |
Olympus ORF |
4d 4d 53 52 |
49 49 52 53 |
Olympus ORF |
45 50 2a 00 |
MDI |
Compression
Tag 259 indicates the image compression scheme, as a coded integer. Some of the known compression schemes are listed below. Some of these are not used in genuine TIFF files, but only in other TIFF-like formats.
| Code | Compression scheme |
|---|---|
| 1 | uncompressed |
| 2 | CCITTRLE. 1-dimensional CCITT Group 3. Essentially the same as code 3, but with different settings. There are no end-of-line markers, and each row is aligned on a byte boundary. See this description from the Encyclopedia of Graphics File Formats. |
| 3 | 1- or 2-dimensional CCITT Group 3, depending on the value of T4Options bit 0. |
| 4 | CCITT Group 4 |
| 5 | LZW |
| 6 | "Old style" JPEG |
| 7 | "New style" JPEG |
| 8 | DEFLATE |
| 9, 10 | JBIG (refer to TIFF-FX) |
| 32766 | NeXT 2-bit RLE |
| 32767 | (Used by Sony ARW.) |
| 32769 | Packed RAW / NIKON_PACK (Used by Epson ERF.) |
| 32770 | (Used by Samsung SRW.) |
| 32771 | CCITTRLEW. Same as code 2, except that rows are aligned on a 2-byte boundary. |
| 32773 | PackBits |
| 32809 | ThunderScan compression |
| 32867 | Kodak KDC (unconfirmed) |
| 32895, 32896, 32897, 32898 | IT8CTPAD, IT8LW, IT8MP, IT8BL (refer to TIFF/IT) |
| 32908 | PIXARFILM. Pixar 10-bit LZW |
| 32909 | PIXARLOG. Pixar companded 11-bit ZIP |
| 32946 | DEFLATE (same as code 8) |
| 32947 | (Used by Kodak DCS.) |
| 34661 | JBIG |
| 34676 | SGILOG. 32-bit SGI Log Luminance RLE |
| 34677 | SGILOG24. 24-bit SGI Log Luminance packed |
| 34692 | (Used by LuraDocument Format.) |
| 34712 | JPEG 2000 |
| 34713 | (Used by Nikon NEF.) |
| 34715 | JBIG2 (TIFF-FX extension) |
| 34718, 34719, 34720 | (Used by MDI.) |
| 34892 | Lossy JPEG (refer to DNG) |
Private/rogue compression codes:
| Code | Compression scheme |
|---|---|
| 99 | JPEG (Used by Leaf MOS.) |
| 262 | Kodak 262 (unconfirmed) |
| 65000 | (Used by Kodak DCR.) |
| 65535 | (Used by Pentax PEF.) |
Color types
Tag 262 indicates the color type ("photometric interpretation") of the image, as a coded integer. Some of the known color types are listed below.
| Code | Color type |
|---|---|
| 0 | Grayscale or bi-level, white is 0 |
| 1 | Grayscale or bi-level, black is 0 |
| 2 | RGB |
| 3 | Palette color |
| 5 | CMYK |
| 6 | YCbCr |
| 8 | CIE L*a*b* |
| 9 | ICC L*a*b* |
| 10 | ITU L*a*b* (refer to TIFF-FX) |
| 32803 | CFA (refer to DNG) |
| 32844 | CIE Log2(L) |
| 32845 | CIE Log2(L) (u',v') |
| 34892 | LinearRaw (refer to DNG) |
Related formats
See also Category:TIFF.
- Tag 32932 contains TIFF annotation data.
- Tag 33723 contains IPTC data.
- Tag 34377 contains Photoshop Image Resources.
- Tags 34665 (Exif IFD), 34853 (GPS IFD), and 40965 (Interoperability IFD) point to Exif directories.
- Tag 34675 contains an ICC profile.
- Tag 37724 (ImageSourceData) contains "Layer and Mask Information" from PSD format.
- Tag 50933 (ExtraCameraProfiles) points to DNG camera profiles.
- Raw camera formats are often based on TIFF.
Specifications
- TIFF, Revision 6.0 (1992-06-03)
- TIFF Revision 5.0 (1988-08-08): HTML, Text
- Tag Image File Format Rev 4.0 (1987-04-31): HTML, Text
- Adobe PageMaker 6.0 TIFF Technical Notes (1995-09-14)
- Adobe Photoshop TIFF Technical Notes (2002-03-22) - Defines tag 37724, compression types 7 and 8, photometric interpretation types 8 and 9
- Adobe Photoshop TIFF Technical Note 3 (2005-04-08)
Metadata tags
- AWare Systems TIFF Tag Reference
- http://www.digitizationguidelines.gov/guidelines/TIFF_Metadata_Final.pdf
- http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/content/tiff_tags.shtml
Metaformat files
- Synalysis grammar file (for Hexinator / Synalize It!; more details)
Software
Most multi-format image viewers and editors support TIFF to some extent. Applications listed here have been selected arbitrarily.
Sample files
- http://www.fileformat.info/format/tiff/sample/index.htm
- http://www.remotesensing.org/libtiff/images.html
- http://people.sc.fsu.edu/~jburkardt/data/tif/tif.html
- https://github.com/openplanets/format-corpus/tree/master/tiff-examples
External links
- Wikipedia article
- TIFF File Format Summary, from the Encyclopedia of Graphics File Formats
- Adobe Developer Resources for TIFF
- JHOVE2 TIFF Module Specification 2.0.0 (useful TIFF information)
- TIFF chart
- TIFF Format Preservation Assessment (British Library)
- TIFF Analysis 3rd Release
- TIFF/A Standard Initiative
