How to open a tiff file. How to open tif? Programs for opening TIF files
Tiff was developed by Aldus Corporation in collaboration with Microsoft. Currently being developed by Adobe Systems. Tiff uses lossless compression and has become a fairly popular format among photographers. Images can be of any size and have any color palette. When saving an image in tiff format, you can specify whether to use LZV compression or not. Also tiff only contains raster data.
What free programs can open a tiff file?
- – a free image viewer, the closest analogue of the paid ACDSee. More than 20 formats of various raster formats are supported. After the first launch, the program will scan the hard drive and display the directories in which the images are stored in the left window. Basic photo editing is supported - rotating, applying effects and filters, removing red eyes, changing contrast. There is a converter that has a great batch conversion feature for converting a large number of images.
- is a free program for viewing images and basic editing. The interface is quite simple. After launch, a window opens with thumbnails of files and folders, as in standard Windows Explorer. Above the viewing window there is an editor panel, and above it is the program menu. The utility supports more than 50 graphics formats. The functionality of the program can be easily expanded using modules that can be downloaded from the official website of the program.
- – a powerful utility for editing and viewing photos, the closest competitor to Adobe Photoshop, but unlike it, it is distributed free of charge. Like Adobe's Photoshop, Gimp works with layers, which allows you to create an image from other drawings. Standard functionality can be easily expanded using plugins.
The more programs appear on the computer technology market, the more diverse extensions and file types there are. Often, in search of information or a solution to a problem, users are faced with the need to download a file with some mysterious extension that they have not dealt with before, and Windows does not recognize it. In this case, you need to look for the program that is “responsible” for opening such a file.
Let's look at an example: how to open a tif file
Firstly, what kind of extension is this? This abbreviation stands for Represents a high-quality graphic format. Due to these characteristics, files with the .tif extension are used to store high-definition images with a huge number of shades of different colors (for example, digital photographs taken with professional cameras, highly detailed drawings or diagrams). It was developed about forty years ago, the first version, naturally, is outdated. It was replaced by later and more “advanced” versions. The more complex the option became (and there are about 50 of them), the higher the requirements for the program that allowed you to open them became.
Despite the fact that files with this kind of extension allow you to preserve the original saturation, detail and quality of a photograph (or painting/drawing/scheme), their actual size is usually smaller than the usual and more common .jpeg format
So, knowing what this extension is and why it is used, all that remains is to figure out how to open the .tif file. The problem is that ordinary programs, especially their older versions, do not provide the ability to fully view these types of files, because do not have the appropriate resources and do not allow processing files of such high quality without compromising viewing.
Therefore, before opening tif files, any user should familiarize themselves with the list of programs that allow you to do this:
- ACDSee. This image processing program is quite difficult to use for beginners, but since you are interested in professional file formats, you will have to learn how to work with it. It is, of course, paid. But there is something to pay for: the program allows you to do scrupulous work on photographs, correct, play with color, and correct sharpness defects and noise.
- Adobe Photoshop. An excellent program, when working with which you are not left with questions like “How to open tif files?”. Just like the previous one, it is a graphic editor, although, unlike the first one, it is more often used in web design. Of course, if you just need to find something to open tif with, then it will do just fine. Processing will require deeper knowledge of working with the program.
Despite the fact that both programs are declared by the manufacturers as paid, on the RuNet, of course, you can find “patched” versions with keys, etc. Which, as you understand, is illegal and not recommended by the author of the article.
As for the choice of users, the majority still prefer Adobe Photoshop, because... she happens to be relatively easy to work with this format.
Often, as practice shows, there is a need to convert a tif file to another, more common, format. There is such a possibility.
So, you have the now well-known tif format. How to open it is clear, but I want to convert it into, for example, or gif. The program will come in handy Microsoft Paint. With its help, we open the file, find the “File” tab, there we select the “Save file as...” function in the context menu, and here we select the desired format.
The lack of programs (even Microsoft Paint) is not an obstacle to converting tif files. There are a large number of different sites on the Internet that allow you to do this procedure online. You just have to keep in mind that loss of quality during formatting is inevitable.
What program to open tif file you can choose from the list below!
Extension .tif What is the file format?
TIF is a popular graphics format. It was designed to store color images that have a wide range of shades. You can often find digital photographs or scanned documents in this format.
Why choose TIF format?
This format is very popular among users because it can support tags and save several different images into one file.
Note that it was the tags that made this format extensible. Also, additional information can be stored in files with this extension. Users of the Adobe Photoshop design program save layer data in a TIF file. This is done optionally. This way the file will have almost all the features of a PSD at a reduced size. Saving files with TIF TIF files can be saved with or without compression.
Note that the most popular compression for this extension is JPEG, ZIP, LZW. If you need to compress a file without losing quality, then ZIP and LZW algorithms should be your options. In this case, the quality of the file will remain consistently high, but its “weight” will significantly decrease.
You can find out which programs you can use to open and edit TIF files on our website.
Now you know how to open tif and what programs to use for this!
If you have installed on your computer antivirus program Can scan all files on your computer, as well as each file individually. You can scan any file by right-clicking on the file and selecting the appropriate option to scan the file for viruses.
For example, in this figure it is highlighted file my-file.tiff, then you need to right-click on this file and select the option in the file menu "scan with AVG". When you select this option, AVG Antivirus will open and scan the file for viruses.
Sometimes an error may occur as a result incorrect software installation, which may be due to a problem encountered during the installation process. This may interfere with your operating system link your TIFF file to the correct application tool, influencing the so-called "file extension associations".
Sometimes simple reinstalling Adobe Illustrator CC can solve your problem by linking TIFF correctly with Adobe Illustrator CC. In other cases, problems with file associations may result from bad software programming developer and you may need to contact the developer for further assistance.
Advice: Try updating Adobe Illustrator CC to the latest version to ensure you have the latest fixes and updates.
This may seem too obvious, but often The TIFF file itself may be causing the problem. If you received a file via an email attachment or downloaded it from a website and the download process was interrupted (such as a power outage or other reason), the file may become damaged. If possible, try getting a new copy of the TIFF file and try opening it again.
Carefully: A damaged file can cause collateral damage to previous or existing malware on your PC, so it is important to keep your computer running an updated antivirus at all times.
If your file is TIFF related to the hardware on your computer to open the file you may need update device drivers associated with this equipment.
This problem usually associated with media file types, which depend on successfully opening the hardware inside the computer, e.g. sound card or video card. For example, if you are trying to open an audio file but cannot open it, you may need to update sound card drivers.
Advice: If when you try to open a TIFF file you receive .SYS file error message, the problem could probably be associated with corrupted or outdated device drivers that need to be updated. This process can be made easier by using driver update software such as DriverDoc.
If the steps do not solve the problem and you are still having problems opening TIFF files, this may be due to lack of available system resources. Some versions of TIFF files may require a significant amount of resources (e.g. memory/RAM, processing power) to properly open on your computer. This problem is quite common if you are using fairly old computer hardware and at the same time a much newer operating system.
This problem can occur when the computer is having trouble keeping up with a task because the operating system (and other services running in the background) may consume too many resources to open a TIFF file. Try closing all applications on your PC before opening Tagged Image File Format. Freeing up all available resources on your computer will provide you with the best conditions for attempting to open your TIFF file.
If you completed all the steps described above and your TIFF file still won't open, you may need to run equipment update. In most cases, even when using older versions of hardware, the processing power can still be more than sufficient for most user applications (unless you're doing a lot of CPU-intensive work, such as 3D rendering, financial/scientific modeling, or intensive multimedia work) . Thus, it is likely that your computer does not have enough memory(commonly called "RAM" or random access memory) to perform the task of opening a file.
One of the main graphic formats used by photographers to store and process digital photo files is TIFF (Tagged Image File Format). These words can be translated into Russian as a file format of images with tags. It was developed in 1994 by Aldus Corporation and Microsoft.
TIFF tags for photo files or named tags, these are information blocks that store a description of the image - size, color model, color depth, etc., as well as information about how and when it was made. In total, several dozen tags of three different types are defined for the TIFF file format: mandatory, extended and optional tags (Fig. 1).
Fig.1 Fragment of the table of required tags for a TIFF photograph file (to view the entire table, click on the image).
Subsequently, the company, the owner of the TIFF format specification, Aldus Corporation, merged with Adobe Systems, which is the developer of the famous Photoshop and Lightroom programs. Now all rights to this format belong to this company, which means that its programs work without problems with TIFF photo files.
About the TIFF format for photographers
The TIFF file format is perhaps one of the first and most complex algorithms developed for storing graphic information. It is capable of storing high-quality images, and therefore is widely used in printing, publishing and photography, which are closely related and of interest to photographers.
If you use the TIFF format for other purposes, nothing bad will happen to your photographs. It always maintains image quality. But in addition to quality, the photographer is also interested in the efficiency of working with photographs and the resources necessary for this. But here there are possible problems that you need to be aware of when choosing this format.
Poor use of the TIFF format wastes any photographer's most valuable resource: time. In addition, to securely store huge volumes of digital photographs in TIFF format, additional effort and money will have to be spent (Fig. 2).
Fig.2 Among the files of one photo saved in different graphic formats, TIFF will always be at least a little, but the largest.
But besides the TIFF format, there are others in which you can also save high-quality photographs. Which one is better? When is it okay to choose the TIFF format, and when is it better not to? What happens to photos if you choose the wrong file format and what is lost? How critical is this?
To answer these questions, you need to know the main features of the TIFF format. By comparing its advantages and disadvantages, it is very easy to determine those areas in which the TIFF format is better suited than others for solving the specific tasks of the photographer in using photo files.
Features of TIFF photos
TIFF photo files usually have a tiff or tif extension. It is supported on both the IBM PC and Apple Macintosh platforms. Many graphics programs for both Windows and Mac can work with TIFF files. This allows you to use it to transfer digital photos from one platform to another, but you just need to specify this in the file parameters when saving it (Fig. 3).
Fig.3 Options window for saving TIFF photo files in Adobe Photoshop.
An important property of TIFF files is the ability to store information in compressed form, which can significantly reduce the size of a digital photograph. This format has different compression algorithms, both lossy image quality, JPEG algorithm, and lossless. In most cases, the lossless compression algorithm – LZW – is used.
Information compression is not a required option for saving photo files in TIFF format and can be disabled. This can be done in any version of Photoshop. It should be remembered that many older programs do not read compressed TIFF files, and their modern counterparts do not have permission to use these compression algorithms. Most often, TIFF compression is not used.
When saving photo files in TIFF format, all color coding modes are supported - 8, 16, and 32 bits per channel, as well as the main color spaces - grayscale, indexed colors, Lab, RGB, CMYK. This format also allows you to save or not save the built-in ICC color profile (Fig. 4).
Fig.4 A fragment of a window for managing the color profile in a TIFF photo file from Adobe Photoshop.
A significant feature of TIFF files for photographs is that they can store several images at once, called layers, which can be either raster or vector. Therefore, this format cannot be attributed to any one strictly defined type, although it is considered raster. It was originally created to store any graphic information, but it also has its drawbacks.
Disadvantages of TIFF photos
The main disadvantage of photographs saved in the TIFF format is their large file size. For example, they can be 10 to 12 times larger than their counterparts saved in JPEG format, which, of course, imposes the following restrictions on them.
Storing TIFF photos requires additional space on your computer's hard drive. When burning such files onto CDs, the number of photos recorded on them will be very small. Or the space allocated in some free Internet cloud service such as, for example, will run out very quickly.
Fig.5 In the free Google Drive cloud you can place only about 800 A4 size TIFF photo files, and about 300 on a DVD disc.
File size also affects the speed of viewing photos, especially on old, low-power computers. For this reason, it is very inconvenient to browse through photo archives and search for photos in them whose files are stored in TIFF format. Firstly, they open very slowly, and secondly, not every graphical system can do this.
The TIFF format also imposes restrictions on posting photographs on the Internet. Due to their large size, they will either open very slowly or not at all. This format is not supported by major Internet browsers, as well as photo sites and various World Wide Web services.
The same problem arises with e-mail in cases where you need to send a letter with attached photo files saved in TIFF format. The size of one such file in megabytes may be greater than the permissible size of the letter and it most likely will not reach the recipient (Fig. 6).
Fig.6 Fragment of the help section of the Yandex Disk service about files attached to letters excludes photographs in TIFF format.
Another major drawback of the TIFF format for digital photos is that some older programs may not open them. As already mentioned, not all of them understand compressed TIFF files, as well as newer files of this format, or they do not have permission to use its specification.
This also applies to various household devices designed for viewing digital photos, such as DVD players and cell phones. For this reason, TIFF photos can only be viewed on a computer. Of course it's inconvenient, but it has better uses.
When do you need TIFF photos?
The TIFF format is a graphics format for professionals. It is used mainly in those areas of digital graphics where high-quality color reproduction in photographs is required. It is especially widely used in printing, professional photographic printing, as well as for scanning film photographic materials during their digitization.
The advantage of the TIFF format over the JPEG format is that it can preserve the color of photographs using more than 8 bits per channel. This allows you to digitize the entire dynamic range of color that photographic film can convey. This is not important for photo paper, since its color gamut is smaller and the 8-bit JPEG format is sufficient for it.
But before printing digital photographs, they are usually processed in graphics programs to eliminate some defects or improve color. This may require saving them multiple times using layers. Of all the photos listed on the files, this can only be done in PSD and TIFF formats. But PSD is a Photoshop format, and you may not have it...
Some professional digital cameras use the TIFF format to save files in the highest possible image quality while saving time that would otherwise be spent processing them in RAW format. This choice combines the main advantages of such formats as JPEG and RAW (Fig. 7).
Fig.7. Some digital cameras allow you to select the TIFF format to save photo files.
Another justified use of the TIFF format is inkjet printing of high-quality photographs on a home printer. This format has more possibilities for working with color when printing than, for example, the JPEG format. Although the difference is not as noticeable, in some cases the color reproduction of TIFF photos will be better.
Well, that’s probably all that can be said about the TIFF format regarding its choice for storing and processing digital photographs. Just like other graphic formats, it has both pros and cons. Which one is best suited and for what purpose can be chosen only by comparison.
Read about other file formats used to store photos in the following articles.
