• TIFF is an industry standard file format designed to represent image data generated by scanners, and paint applications.

• It is designed to describe images in several color models with different data compression technique.

• It is processor and device independent file format, it allows interchanging files across different platforms.

• The TIFF design is flexible enough to take advantage of the functionality offered by image capture devices.

• TIFF is extensible, allowing new enhancing specification without sacrificing download compatibility.

• TIFF file format header

• Structure of TIFF Image File Directory (IFD)

In tagged file formats, tags are used to keep all attribute information in a standard manner . For e.g. The TIFF file format provides tags that store information such as:

• about resolution,

• pixel information,

• visual characteristics,

• color,

• the compression technique used for capturing,

• the date and time for capture,

• name of image,

• software version and even the name of creator who created the file.

• A search through a file is quick since tag locations are found through pointers. If more space is required for changes or updates to a specific type of information more space is allocated, and the pointer to the new block is inserted into the pointer field provided by the tagged block.

TIFF version 5.0 supports following five classes:

• Class B for binary images.

• Class F for fax

• Class G for gray-scale image

• Class P for palette color images

• Class R for RGB full-color images

• In TIFF version 6, classes of version 5 are a part of the baseline specification.

• Class extensions in version 6.0 consist of the following

• 1. Images that use the color models CMYK

• 2. Compression schemes including CCITT Group 3 1D, RLE, Huffman Coding, JPEG compression.

• As can be seen from the above, TIFF version 6.0 allows a much wider range of specifications.

TIFF IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES

• The TIFF file reader must read all tags that it is designed to interpret and assemble the information for processing the image data.

• The TIFF file writer should create TIFF file efficiently, that is, TIFF writer should follow the TIFF specification rigidly so that any TIFF reader will be able to read the TIFF file gracefully/easily.

Advantages of TIFF

• Search is quicker because of tags.

• Updates are handled more easily.

• More space is provided for new information by adding another tagged block to the file.