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TIFF
What is a TIFF file?
The print and archiving standard. Lossless, multi-page capable, understood by every scanner.
What TIFF is
TIFF is a container: a wrapper that holds streams encoded by something else. It stores a grid of pixels, so enlarging it past its own resolution softens it. It is used for print, scanning and archiving.
The extension is .tif, and the full name is Tagged Image File Format. Both matter less than what the file can hold, which is what the rest of this page is about.
Where TIFF came from
Adobe published it in 1986. The specification is TIFF 6.0.
A format that has been readable for that long is a format worth trusting with something you want back in ten years.
The specification is published, but by its owner
It is written down and implementable, though the vendor decides what the next version looks like. In practice that is enough for the file to keep opening; it is not enough to be sure of it.
Nothing is thrown away
TIFF stores its content exactly. Saving it again changes nothing, so it can be opened, edited and re-saved as often as you like without accumulating damage — which is what makes it a working format rather than a delivery one.
It can be transparent
TIFF carries an alpha channel, so a logo keeps its soft edges over whatever sits behind it instead of arriving in a white box.
Colour it can describe
Up to 32 bits per channel. It can work in RGB, CMYK, the model a printing press needs, greyscale and Lab.
CMYK is the one that decides whether a printer accepts the file, and it is the thing most often lost converting to a screen format.
It can hold several pages in one file
A TIFF file is not limited to one page, which matters when converting to something that is: a target that holds one image produces one file per page, and the numbering it chooses is worth checking before you send it on.
It keeps the layers
TIFF stores the parts of an image separately rather than flattened together, which is what makes it a working file. Almost every format it converts into flattens them, and the flattening is not reversible — keep the layered original.
It goes by other names too
Also known as TIF. Worth knowing when searching for a program that handles it: the name on the specification and the name on the menu are not always the same one.
What opens TIFF
Adobe Photoshop, Affinity Photo and ImageMagick read it, and so do most programs of the same kind.
If a file will not open, the format is rarely the problem — it is more often that the program predates it. Converting to something older is the reliable way past that, and it is what the rest of this site is for.
Opening it in a browser
No browser reads it.
That is the single most common reason to convert it: not that the format is bad, but that the place you want to show the file cannot read it.
What it can carry besides the content
TIFF can hold EXIF, XMP, IPTC, ICC profiles and GPS coordinates.
The GPS coordinates are the field worth thinking about before sending a file anywhere: they say where the photograph was taken, and almost nothing warns you that they are still in there.
It is a working format
TIFF is meant to be opened and changed. Keep the file in this format for as long as the work is going on, and export from it whenever a finished copy is needed.
What goes wrong with it
The recurring complaints: the files are large for what they contain and support outside its home ground is uneven.
None of these is a reason to avoid the format. They are the things worth knowing before you are surprised by one, which is a different claim and a more useful one.
The facts, in one place
| Extension | .tif, .tiff |
|---|---|
| Media type | image/tiff |
| Published by | Adobe |
| First published | 1986 |
| Specification | TIFF 6.0 |
Converting TIFF to something else
Converting something else to TIFF
Formats worth considering instead of TIFF
Where these figures come from
The claims on this page are checkable, and these are the documents that settle them.