TIFF Format — What is Tagged Image File Format?
TIFF is a flexible, high-quality image format widely used in professional photography, publishing, and archival. It supports multiple compression methods and high color depths.
Extension
.tiff
Compression
Lossless
Transparency
Yes
MIME Type
image/tiff
Pros & Cons
✅ Pros
- • Lossless quality
- • High color depth
- • Multiple pages/layers
- • Industry standard for print
❌ Cons
- • Very large file sizes
- • Limited web support
- • Complex format
- • Not suitable for web use
Best Use Cases
- Professional photography
- Print publishing
- Archival storage
- Medical imaging
Technical Details
TIFF uses a tag-based structure allowing various compression methods (LZW, ZIP, JPEG). It supports up to 32-bit per channel and multiple image layers.
History
TIFF was created by Aldus Corporation in 1986 and is now controlled by Adobe. It remains the standard format for high-quality image exchange in publishing.