What Is a TIFF File? TIF vs TIFF, Compression, and How to Open One
What Is a TIFF File?
A TIFF file is a high-quality raster image saved in the Tagged Image File Format, with the extension .tif or .tiff. If you're asking "what is a TIFF file" because a scanner, a print shop, or a photographer just handed you a 100 MB image, the short answer is: it's the format professionals use when they don't want to lose a single pixel. It usually stores images with no compression or with lossless compression, so the file is exact and big.
TIFF was created by Stephen Carlsen at Aldus Corporation (the makers of PageMaker) and first published in 1986. The goal was to get desktop scanner makers to agree on one common format for scanned images. The final major revision, TIFF 6.0, came out in 1992. Adobe acquired Aldus in 1994 and still holds the specification, which is why Photoshop has always treated TIFF as a first-class format.
Three things explain almost every TIFF question:
- It's a container, not one fixed encoding. A TIFF can be uncompressed, losslessly compressed (LZW, ZIP), or even JPEG-compressed inside. That's why two TIFFs of the same photo can differ wildly in size.
- It's built for quality, not convenience. High bit depth, CMYK color, multiple pages, and layers all fit inside a TIFF. Web browsers mostly can't show one.
- It's big. An 8-bit uncompressed TIFF takes 3 bytes per pixel, so a 12-megapixel photo is about 36 MB before you've done anything to it.
What Is a TIFF File Made Of?
The "tagged" part of the name is the key. A TIFF file starts with a small header that says which byte order it uses (II for Intel, MM for Motorola), then points to one or more image file directories. Each directory is a list of tags: image width, height, bits per sample, color space, compression method, resolution, and where the pixel data lives. Software reads the tags it understands and skips the rest, which is how the format has been extended for 40 years without breaking.
| Feature | What TIFF supports | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Bit depth | 1-bit (black and white), 8-bit, 16-bit per channel, and floating point | 16-bit keeps smooth gradients through heavy editing |
| Color spaces | RGB, CMYK, grayscale, CIE L*a*b*, YCbCr | CMYK is what commercial printers work in |
| Transparency | Alpha channels | Cutouts and masks survive the round trip |
| Multiple pages | Several images in one file | Faxes and multi-page document scans |
| Layers | Photoshop can store its layers in a TIFF | Edit later without keeping a separate PSD |
| Metadata | EXIF, IPTC, XMP, ICC color profiles | Camera info, captions, copyright, color accuracy |
| Compression | None, LZW, ZIP (Deflate), PackBits, JPEG, CCITT G3/G4 | Lossless options shrink files with zero quality loss |
Two caveats. Layers saved by Photoshop are an Adobe extension: other apps ignore them and show the flattened image that Photoshop also stores in the file. And classic TIFF uses 32-bit file offsets, so a single TIFF tops out at about 4 GB. BigTIFF, a 64-bit variant, removes that limit, but many apps still can't open it.
TIFF compression: LZW, ZIP, JPEG, or none
When you save a TIFF in Photoshop, you get an Image Compression choice of None, LZW, ZIP, or JPEG. Here's what each one does:
- None. Raw pixel data. Largest file, fastest to read, and accepted everywhere. Some print shops and archives ask for this explicitly.
- LZW. Lossless. Added in TIFF 5.0 and the most widely supported compressed option. It was once restricted by patents, which expired in 2004.
- ZIP (Deflate). Lossless. The same Deflate algorithm used inside ordinary ZIP files. Usually a bit smaller than LZW, but a few older readers don't support it.
- JPEG. Lossy. You get a TIFF wrapper around JPEG-quality data, which defeats much of the point of using TIFF.
- PackBits and CCITT Group 3/Group 4 are simpler or specialized schemes. G4 is the standard for black-and-white document scans and faxes.
Lossless means the decompressed pixels are bit-for-bit identical to the original. If that distinction is fuzzy, our explainer on the difference between lossy and lossless compression covers it.
To see how much each option matters, we converted the same 4000 × 2668 photo (10.7 megapixels, 8-bit RGB) into TIFFs with macOS sips and tiffcp:
| Version | File size | Lossless? |
|---|---|---|
| TIFF, no compression | 32.0 MB | Yes |
| TIFF, PackBits | 32.2 MB | Yes |
| TIFF, LZW without predictor | 24.9 MB | Yes |
| TIFF, LZW with predictor | 9.4 MB | Yes |
| TIFF, ZIP with predictor | 9.0 MB | Yes |
| PNG | 10.0 MB | Yes |
| TIFF, JPEG quality 90 | 1.4 MB | No |
| JPEG, quality 80 | 1.4 MB | No |
The "predictor" is a TIFF setting that stores the difference between neighboring pixels instead of the pixels themselves, which makes photos far more compressible. macOS sips turns it on automatically for LZW. Our source photo had been through JPEG once already, which smooths out fine grain, so real scanner or camera files with more noise will compress less. The ranking stays the same. A 16-bit version of the same image would be 64.0 MB uncompressed, exactly double.
TIF vs TIFF: Is There a Difference?
No. .tif and .tiff are the same format. The three-letter .tif comes from DOS and early Windows, which limited file extensions to three characters. Systems without that limit could spell out the full .tiff. Today every app treats them identically, and renaming photo.tif to photo.tiff changes nothing about the file.
The same thing happened with .jpg and .jpeg. Use whichever extension your workflow or client asks for.
What Is a TIFF File Used For?
TIFF is rarely the format you want to receive, but it is the right format for several jobs:
- Printing and publishing. TIFF handles CMYK, 16-bit color, and high resolution, so magazine and book layouts in InDesign and QuarkXPress have relied on it for decades. If you're preparing files for print, see our guide to 300 DPI resolution.
- Scanning. Flatbed and film scanners default to TIFF because it captures exactly what the sensor saw. Black-and-white document scans often use TIFF with Group 4 compression.
- Archives and libraries. The Library of Congress notes that uncompressed TIFF has been widely used as a master format in digital library projects. When you only get one chance to digitize a fragile photo, you want it lossless.
- Photography. Photographers export edited RAW files to 16-bit TIFF to hand off to retouchers or printers. Adobe's DNG raw format is itself built on the TIFF structure. Our RAW image format guide explains how the two relate.
- Maps and GIS. GeoTIFF adds tags for coordinates and map projections, so satellite imagery and elevation data can be placed precisely on a map. The Library of Congress lists GeoTIFF among its preferred formats for georeferenced images.
- Fax and medical imaging. Multi-page TIFF was the basis for digital fax, and many document management systems still store scans this way.
TIFF vs JPG vs PNG
Here's how a TIFF file compares with the two formats people usually convert it to:
| TIFF | JPEG | PNG | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Compression | None, lossless, or lossy | Lossy | Lossless |
| Bit depth | Up to 16-bit and float | 8-bit | Up to 16-bit |
| CMYK | Yes | Possible, poorly supported | No |
| Transparency | Yes | No | Yes |
| Layers / multiple pages | Yes | No | No |
| Browser support | Safari only | All | All |
| Typical size (our test photo) | 9 to 32 MB | 1.4 MB | 10 MB |
| Best for | Print, scans, archives, editing masters | Sharing, email, photos on the web | Screenshots, graphics, transparency |
TIFF vs JPG: TIFF wins for quality and repeated editing, because each JPEG save throws away a little more data. JPEG wins for everything that involves sending or displaying an image. A good rule: edit and archive in TIFF, deliver in JPEG.
TIFF vs PNG: Both can be lossless and both support transparency, so they're closer than they look. PNG works in every browser and app; TIFF adds CMYK, multiple pages, and layers. For web graphics, PNG. For print, TIFF. For how JPEG and PNG compare with each other, read JPEG vs PNG.
How to Open a TIFF File
On a Mac
Double-click the file and it opens in Preview. To peek without opening an app, select it in Finder and press Space for Quick Look. Preview shows the pages of a multi-page TIFF as thumbnails in its sidebar. Photoshop, Affinity Photo, Pixelmator Pro, and GIMP all open and edit TIFFs.
On Windows
On Windows 11, the Photos app opens TIFF files. Multi-page TIFFs are its weak spot: it often shows only the first page with no way to flip to the next. If that happens, try Paint, a dedicated viewer like IrfanView, or an editor such as GIMP or Photoshop.
On iPhone and iPad
Save the file to the Files app and tap it. Single-page TIFFs preview normally. Multi-page TIFFs may show only the first page, in which case a dedicated TIFF viewer app from the App Store helps.
In a web browser
According to MDN, Safari is the only major browser that displays TIFF images natively. Chrome, Firefox, and Edge will usually download the file instead of showing it. That's the main reason TIFF doesn't belong on websites. If you need a format for the web, our best image format for websites guide covers the options.
Should You Keep or Convert a TIFF File?
Keep the TIFF when:
- It's an original scan, an archival master, or a file headed to a professional printer.
- You'll keep editing it, especially in 16-bit or CMYK.
- A client, publisher, or archive specifically asked for TIFF.
Convert it when:
- You're emailing, uploading, or posting it. Convert to JPEG for photos.
- It has transparency or sharp-edged graphics and needs to work everywhere. Convert to PNG.
- It's going on a website. Use WebP or JPEG.
Always convert a copy and keep the original TIFF. Our TIFF to JPG converter guide walks through Preview, sips, ImageMagick, and batch conversion step by step, plus which quality setting to choose.
How to Make a TIFF File Smaller (Without Losing Quality)
If you need to keep the format but the files are eating your disk, these steps shrink a TIFF file losslessly or close to it:
- Switch to LZW or ZIP compression. In our test, that alone cut a 32 MB file to about 9 MB, with identical pixels. In Photoshop, use File → Save As, choose TIFF, and pick LZW or ZIP under Image Compression.
- Flatten or discard layers. Layered TIFFs carry the composite image and every layer. In Photoshop's TIFF Options, Layer Compression can use ZIP, or you can discard layers and save a copy.
- Drop to 8-bit when editing is done. 16-bit doubles the size. Once the final edit is locked in, 8-bit is enough for most prints and all screens.
- Remove unused alpha channels. Scanners and some editors add one even when nothing is transparent.
- Resize to the size you need. A 600 DPI scan of a 4 × 6 inch print is far more than a 4 × 6 reprint at 300 DPI needs.
On a Mac, the built-in sips command re-saves a TIFF with LZW compression in one line:
sips -s format tiff -s formatOptions lzw scan.tif --out scan-lzw.tif
To do a whole folder with ZIP compression, tiffcp from libtiff (brew install libtiff) works well:
for f in *.tif; do tiffcp -c zip:2 "$f" "zip-$f"; done
The :2 turns on the horizontal predictor. For the bigger picture on lossless techniques, see what is lossless compression.
Compressing and converting TIFFs with Compresto
If you'd rather not touch Terminal, Compresto compresses TIFF images on your Mac and can convert them to JPEG, PNG, or WebP in the same pass. Drop in a folder of scans, pick a quality or resize setting, and it processes the batch locally, with nothing uploaded. It keeps EXIF, IPTC, and XMP metadata when you ask it to, and for JPEG output you can type a target file size, such as 1 MB, and let it hit that cap. Support for TIFF arrived in Compresto 1.11.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a TIFF file?
A raster image in the Tagged Image File Format (.tif or .tiff), created by Aldus in 1986 and now maintained by Adobe. It stores images without loss, supports 16-bit color, CMYK, transparency, multiple pages and layers, and is used for print, scanning, photography and archives.
Is there a difference between TIF and TIFF?
No. They're two extensions for the same format. .tif exists because old DOS and Windows systems allowed only three-letter extensions.
How do I open a TIFF file?
Mac: Preview or Quick Look. Windows 11: Photos, Paint, or a viewer like IrfanView for multi-page files. iPhone: the Files app. Browsers: Safari only.
Is TIFF better than JPG?
For editing, printing and archiving, yes. For sharing and the web, no. Keep the TIFF as your master and export JPEGs to send.
Which TIFF compression should I use: LZW, ZIP or none?
LZW or ZIP. Both are lossless. LZW is the most compatible, ZIP is usually slightly smaller. Choose none only when a printer or archive asks for it.
How do I make a TIFF file smaller?
Re-save with LZW or ZIP compression, flatten layers, drop to 8-bit, remove unused alpha channels, and resize. For sharing, convert a copy to JPEG.
The Short Version
A TIFF file is the professional's lossless image format: huge, flexible, and trusted by printers, scanners, and archives for 40 years. .tif and .tiff are the same thing. Open it with Preview, Photos, or the Files app, save it with LZW or ZIP compression to cut its size by half or more, and convert a copy to JPEG or PNG whenever it needs to leave your computer.