TIFF

Writable

image · also known as TIFF

The Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) is a raster image format originally developed by the Aldus Corporation, primarily for use in scanning and desktop publishing. When Adobe Systems Incorporated purchased Aldus in 1994, they acquired the rights to the TIFF format and have maintained it since then. TIFF files comprise three sections: an Image File Header (IFH), an Image File Directory (IFD), and the image data. TIFF files can contain multiple images (multi-page TIFF), and each image has a separate IFD. The IFH always appears at the beginning of the file, and is immediately followed by a pointer to the first IFD. The IFD contains metadata which describes the associated image, stored as a series of tags. The IFD also contains a pointer to the actual image data. TIFF supports colour depths from 1 bit to 24 bit (e.g. monochrome to true colour), and a wide range of compression types (RLE, LZW, CCITT Group 3 and Group 4, and JPEG), as well as uncompressed data.

Identify it

Extensions	`.tif.tiff`
MIME types	`image/tiff`
Signatures	`49492a00` at byte 0 (TIFF generic (little-endian)) `4d4d002a` at byte 0 (TIFF generic (big-endian))
PRONOM	`fmt/353`
Wikidata	`Q215106Q27231654`
Library of Congress	`fdd000022`
Apple UTI	`public.tiff`

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Open it

3DSlicerOpen sourcereads and writes · BSD licenses
dcrawOpen sourcewrites · GNU General Public License, version 2.0 / donationware
DevILOpen sourcereads and writes · GNU Lesser General Public License, version 2.1
digiKamOpen sourcereads and writes · GNU General Public License, version 2.0 or later
GD Graphics LibraryOpen sourcewrites · BSD licenses
GDALOpen sourcereads and writes · MIT License
GIMPOpen sourcereads and writes · GNU General Public License, version 3.0
ImageMagickOpen sourcereads and writes · ImageMagick License
ImageMagick (WebAssembly)Open sourcereads and writes · Apache-2.0
InVesaliusOpen sourcereads and writes · GNU General Public License, version 2.0 / GNU Lesser General Public License, version 3.0 or later
libexiv2Open sourcereads and writes · GNU General Public License, version 2.0 or later
LibRawOpen sourcereads and writes · Common Development and Distribution License version 1.0 / GNU Lesser General Public License, version 2.1
LibreOffice DrawOpen sourcereads and writes · Mozilla Public License, version 2.0
LibTIFFOpen sourcereads and writes · libtiff License
OpenJUMPOpen sourcereads and writes · GNU General Public License, version 2.0
Q141647655Open sourcereads and writes · Apache Software License 2.0 / MIT License
Q141647660Open sourcereads and writes · Apache Software License 2.0 / MIT License
Q141647665Open sourcewrites · Apache Software License 2.0 / MIT License
ShotwellOpen sourcereads and writes · GNU Lesser General Public License, version 2.1 or later
SimThyrOpen sourcewrites · BSD licenses
Visualization LibraryOpen sourcereads and writes · BSD licenses
Visualization ToolkitOpen sourcereads and writes · 3-clause BSD License
XfigOpen sourcereads and writes · GNU General Public License / MIT License
AbydosOpen sourcereads · GNU Lesser General Public License
Apache TikaOpen sourcereads · Apache Software License 2.0
ArchivistaOpen sourcereads · GNU General Public License, version 2.0
AudiverisOpen sourcereads · GNU General Public License
Bio-Formats LibraryOpen sourcereads · GNU General Public License
CinePaintOpen sourcereads · GNU General Public License, version 2.0
ConverseenOpen sourcereads · GNU General Public License, version 3.0
CropToolOpen sourcereads · MIT License
EvinceOpen sourcereads · GNU General Public License, version 2.0
ExifToolOpen sourcereads · Artistic License / GNU General Public License, version 1.0 or later
F-SpotOpen sourcereads · GNU General Public License / MIT License
Ginkgo CADxOpen sourcereads · GNU Lesser General Public License
GoobiOpen sourcereads · GNU General Public License
GQViewOpen sourcereads · GNU General Public License, version 2.0
imageioOpen sourcereads · 2-clause BSD License
Insight Segmentation and Registration ToolkitOpen sourcereads · Apache Software License 2.0
JHOVEOpen sourcereads · GNU Lesser General Public License

And 245 more in the JSON record.

Convert it

Convert a file in your browser The steps marked “in browser” run on your machine; nothing is uploaded.

To	With	Fidelity	Command and losses
BMP 5.0	ImageMagick (WebAssembly)	Lossless	in browser Pixels kept; some metadata, colour profiles or layers may be dropped.
PNG	ImageMagick	Lossless	`convert in.tif out.png` Pixels kept; some metadata, colour profiles or layers may be dropped.
PNG	ImageMagick (WebAssembly)	Lossless	in browser Pixels kept; some metadata, colour profiles or layers may be dropped.
Quite OK Image Format	ImageMagick (WebAssembly)	Lossless	in browser Pixels kept; some metadata, colour profiles or layers may be dropped.
PDF	ImageMagick (WebAssembly)	Partial	in browser The image is embedded in a PDF page.
AVIF	ImageMagick (WebAssembly)	Lossy	in browser Lossy compression.
GIF 89a	ImageMagick	Lossy	`convert in.tif out.gif` Reduced to 256 colours.
GIF 89a	ImageMagick (WebAssembly)	Lossy	in browser Reduced to 256 colours.
ICO	ImageMagick (WebAssembly)	Lossy	in browser Icons are limited to 256 × 256 pixels.
JFIF 1.02	ImageMagick	Lossy	`convert in.tif out.jpg` Lossy compression.
JFIF 1.02	ImageMagick (WebAssembly)	Lossy	in browser Lossy compression.
JPEG XL	ImageMagick (WebAssembly)	Lossy	in browser Lossy compression.
WebP	ImageMagick	Lossy	`convert in.tif out.webp` Lossy compression.
WebP	ImageMagick (WebAssembly)	Lossy	in browser Lossy compression.

Versions and variants (2)

GeoTIFFWritable
TIFF/EPReadable

Sources

From Converters (FFmpeg, ImageMagick, Pandoc, LibreOffice), WebAssembly engines (ImageMagick, FFmpeg, Pandoc, 7-Zip, GDAL, Assimp, resvg), Just Solve the File Format Problem (File Formats Wiki), PRONOM, Wikidata. Updated 2026-10-26.

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