TIFF

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File Format
Name TIFF
Ontology
Extension(s) .tiff, .tif
MIME Type(s) image/tiff
LoCFDD fdd000022
PRONOM fmt/353

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.

Contents

Specifications

Metadata tags

Compression

Tag 259 indicates the image compression scheme, as a coded integer. Some of the known compression schemes are listed below.

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
32771 CCITTRLEW. Same as code 2, except that rows are aligned on a 2-byte boundary.
32773 PackBits
32809 ThunderScan compression
32895, 32896, 32897, 32898 IT8CTPAD, IT8LW, IT8MP, IT8BL (refer to TIFF/IT)
32908, 32909 PIXARFILM, PIXARLOG
32946 DEFLATE (same as code 8)
32947 Kodak DCS
34661 JBIG
34676, 34677 SGILOG, SGILOG24
34692 (Refer to LuraDocument Format.)
34712 JPEG 2000
34713 (Refer to Nikon NEF.)
34715 JBIG2 (TIFF-FX extension)
34718, 34719, 34720 (Refer to MDI. Might not be used in genuine TIFF files.)
34892 Lossy JPEG (refer to DNG)

Color types

Tag 262 indicates the color type ("photometric interpretation") of the image, as a coded integer. Some of the defined 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.

Sample images

External links

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