What about TIFF?

ocrampix · Mar 22, 2010

Most of us shoot in JPEG and/or RAW, but who uses TIFF and why?

The reason why I ask is that the following text by Nikon virtually kills TIFF, especially the last sentence.

Quote:

A TIF image is an uncompressed image showing the full detail of the image with no quality loss. TIFF images are very large and can take large amounts of storage space and can take a long time to save to the memory card.

When a TIF image is created in the camera, the camera takes the RAW image from the camera's sensor and converts it into the TIFF format using the settings in the camera's menus. There is little reason to shoot TIFF images in the camera.

Unquote.

Link: http://support.nikontech.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/538

In any case, none of the nice features available with RAW files are possible with TIFF files.

What am I missing here?

Marco
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malch · Mar 22, 2010

ocrampix said:
Most of us shoot in JPEG and/or RAW, but who uses TIFF and why?

I use TIFF, during editing. Most often, I use it to move RAW conversions from Capture NX into CS4 for further editing.

TIFF does have a place and it does have some good points:

1. It's a widely supported standard.

2. It can be used to retain full 16-bit precision of the channel data (unlike JPEG which is limited to 8-bit).

3. It includes optional compression and that compression is lossless (unlike JPEG).

4. It allows files to be saved with multiple layers.

TIFF is useful but I'd never dream of shooting TIFF in camera on my DSLR; RAW is much more useful there.

ocrampix · Mar 22, 2010

malch said:
ocrampix said:

Most of us shoot in JPEG and/or RAW, but who uses TIFF and why?

Click to expand...

I use TIFF, during editing. Most often, I use it to move RAW conversions from Capture NX into CS4 for further editing.

TIFF does have a place and it does have some good points:

1. It's a widely supported standard.

2. It can be used to retain full 16-bit precision of the channel data (unlike JPEG which is limited to 8-bit).

3. It includes optional compression and that compression is lossless (unlike JPEG).

4. It allows files to be saved with multiple layers.

Yes, I am quite aware of those points you mention, but...

Member said:
TIFF is useful but I'd never dream of shooting TIFF in camera on my DSLR; RAW is much more useful there.

...why is TIFF then available as a shooting format as the RAW format offers all sorts of modifiable parameters, which the TIFF format does not?

Marco
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malch · Mar 22, 2010

ocrampix said:
...why is TIFF then available as a shooting format as the RAW format offers all sorts of modifiable parameters, which the TIFF format does not?

I can only guess why Nikon made it an in-camera option:

1. It was easy to do. RAW files use a kind of TIFF representation internally so the camera pretty much already had the necessary smarts to handle TIFF.

2. Some (likely specialized commercial/industrial) users wanted an in-camera RAW conversion but they wanted to take a 16-bit lossless and non-proprietary image directly from the camera to a printer or some other device. This might be viewed as useful by forensic photographers, for example.

Ray Ritchie · Mar 22, 2010

In addition to malch's points, I'd guess that TIFF is included because it can be used/ printed direct from the camera, and will give somewhat higher quality than JPEG (probably less blocking in shadows, no compression artifacts). But you should also note that the TIFF's produced by the camera are 8-bit TIFF's, not 16-bit as you can get from the RAW files.

I think I've seen posts here from people who were shooting commercial assignments where some editor specifically asked them to provide direct-from-camera TIFF's, but I think that's pretty uncommon.

Ray

Thomas Comerford · Mar 22, 2010

malch said:
ocrampix said:

...why is TIFF then available as a shooting format as the RAW format offers all sorts of modifiable parameters, which the TIFF format does not?

Click to expand...

I can only guess why Nikon made it an in-camera option:

1. It was easy to do. RAW files use a kind of TIFF representation internally so the camera pretty much already had the necessary smarts to handle TIFF.

2. Some (likely specialized commercial/industrial) users wanted an in-camera RAW conversion but they wanted to take a 16-bit lossless and non-proprietary image directly from the camera to a printer or some other device. This might be viewed as useful by forensic photographers, for example.

Yep, probably, although out-of-camera TIFFs are actually only 8-bit (and still huge).

--
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malch · Mar 22, 2010

Thomas Comerford said:
Yep, probably, although out-of-camera TIFFs are actually only 8-bit (and still huge).

Thanks, I had forgotten they were 8-bit.

TIFF's might also be useful when the images are to be subjected to automated analysis. Think about a camera installed on a production line for Quality Assurance purposes, for example. TIFF's can be analyzed directly without the need for decompression or the management of JPEG artifacts.

Maybe some surveying applications too. Where's Dez?

Murray Bowles · Mar 23, 2010

It would be more useful (now that CFs are huge) if the camera could save TIFF-16s: that would save a conversion step. But they would probably be REALLY slow to save then.

DezM · Mar 23, 2010

malch said:
Thomas Comerford said:

Yep, probably, although out-of-camera TIFFs are actually only 8-bit (and still huge).

Click to expand...

Thanks, I had forgotten they were 8-bit.

TIFF's might also be useful when the images are to be subjected to automated analysis. Think about a camera installed on a production line for Quality Assurance purposes, for example. TIFF's can be analyzed directly without the need for decompression or the management of JPEG artifacts.

Maybe some surveying applications too. Where's Dez?

We don't use Tiffs in the field. Our measurements are critical and accurate but Jpegs suffice for ground surveys.

Although in aerial topography (or Aerial Photogrammetry), they do use Tiff as the graphic output. I've seen some aerial topographic photographs and they are huge.
--
Dez

http://photos.dezmix.com

ocrampix · Mar 23, 2010

malch said:
ocrampix said:

...why is TIFF then available as a shooting format as the RAW format offers all sorts of modifiable parameters, which the TIFF format does not?

Click to expand...

I can only guess why Nikon made it an in-camera option:

1. It was easy to do. RAW files use a kind of TIFF representation internally so the camera pretty much already had the necessary smarts to handle TIFF.

The way I understood this is that it is really the other way around. RAW files are in fact converted in the camera itself to TIFF format based on the camera's menu settings.

Member said:
2. Some (likely specialized commercial/industrial) users wanted an in-camera RAW conversion but they wanted to take a 16-bit lossless and non-proprietary image directly from the camera to a printer or some other device. This might be viewed as useful by forensic photographers, for example.

But would a TIFF photo in this particular case really be of better quality than the best, but smaller JPEG file?

Marco
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ocrampix · Mar 23, 2010

Ray Ritchie said:
In addition to malch's points, I'd guess that TIFF is included because it can be used/ printed direct from the camera, and will give somewhat higher quality than JPEG (probably less blocking in shadows, no compression artifacts).

I suppose that TIFF would be interesting in this case if the print is really big, i.e. more than an A4-size print.

Ray Ritchie said:
But you should also note that the TIFF's produced by the camera are 8-bit TIFF's, not 16-bit as you can get from the RAW files.

This is confusing, I thought that our RAW photos were either 12- or 14-bit format.

Marco
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Ray Ritchie · Mar 23, 2010

ocrampix said:
Ray Ritchie said:

But you should also note that the TIFF's produced by the camera are 8-bit TIFF's, not 16-bit as you can get from the RAW files.

Click to expand...

This is confusing, I thought that our RAW photos were either 12- or 14-bit format.

Yes, you're right about that. But when you open the RAW photos in, say, Photoshop, it turns those into a 16-bit format, though there is really only 12 or 14 bits of resolution there (the extra bits being filled in with zeros). When you process these bits, calculations are carried out to full 16- bit accuracy, and the processed output is saved with all 16 bits used. So people usually think of them as 16-bit files, even though the original unprocessed NEF had only 12 or 14 bits.

Ray

Dean A Givens · Mar 23, 2010

Interesting and informative thread.

Although I almost always shoot in RAW and never TIFF, it got me to researching on the web. I found this informative article, which you may find useful, also:

http://photo.net/learn/raw/

--
Deano

'You can have my D300 when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.'

malch · Mar 23, 2010

ocrampix said:
ocrampix said:

2. Some (likely specialized commercial/industrial) users wanted an in-camera RAW conversion but they wanted to take a 16-bit lossless and non-proprietary image directly from the camera to a printer or some other device. This might be viewed as useful by forensic photographers, for example.

Click to expand...

But would a TIFF photo in this particular case really be of better quality than the best, but smaller JPEG file?

Depends how you define quality?

To the human eye I don't think there would be much it in.

But in some applications there are other definitions of quality. If you want to take automated measurements from the image the TIFF is probably better. Others will be more concerned about data integrity and the potential for tampering with the evidence etc. I suspect the TIFF offers advantages there too.

Thomas Comerford · Mar 23, 2010

malch said:
ocrampix said:

Member said:

2. Some (likely specialized commercial/industrial) users wanted an in-camera RAW conversion but they wanted to take a 16-bit lossless and non-proprietary image directly from the camera to a printer or some other device. This might be viewed as useful by forensic photographers, for example.

Click to expand...

But would a TIFF photo in this particular case really be of better quality than the best, but smaller JPEG file?

Click to expand...

Depends how you define quality?

To the human eye I don't think there would be much it in.

But in some applications there are other definitions of quality. If you want to take automated measurements from the image the TIFF is probably better. Others will be more concerned about data integrity and the potential for tampering with the evidence etc. I suspect the TIFF offers advantages there too.

For anyone concerned about tampering, raw is definitely the one to use since it would be hardest format to tamper with, by a mile. JPEGs wouldn't be too difficult to alter, but TIFFs are trivial because they are uncompressed so you could overwrite the image data in the file with anything at all and it would still be considered a valid image (although it may not look right to the human eye).

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ocrampix · Mar 23, 2010

malch said:
ocrampix said:

Member said:

2. Some (likely specialized commercial/industrial) users wanted an in-camera RAW conversion but they wanted to take a 16-bit lossless and non-proprietary image directly from the camera to a printer or some other device. This might be viewed as useful by forensic photographers, for example.

Click to expand...

But would a TIFF photo in this particular case really be of better quality than the best, but smaller JPEG file?

Click to expand...

Depends how you define quality?

A good quality A4-size print.

Member said:
To the human eye I don't think there would be much it in.

Exactly!

Member said:
But in some applications there are other definitions of quality. If you want to take automated measurements from the image the TIFF is probably better. Others will be more concerned about data integrity and the potential for tampering with the evidence etc. I suspect the TIFF offers advantages there too.

OK, fair enough, I can appreciate that.

I would assume that for the rest of us, that the huge file size of a full resolution TIFF photo - around 36 MB for our D300(s) cameras - could be the main problem.

Marco
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ocrampix · Mar 23, 2010

Dean A Givens said:
Interesting and informative thread.

Although I almost always shoot in RAW and never TIFF, it got me to researching on the web. I found this informative article, which you may find useful, also:

http://photo.net/learn/raw/

Interesting article.

For me the key phrase there is: " If you know you have the correct exposure and white balance as well as the optimum camera set parameters, then a high quality JPEG will give you a print just as good as one from a converted RAW file, so you may as well shoot JPEG."

Marco
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Scott Winders · Mar 23, 2010

ocrampix said:
ocrampix said:

1. It was easy to do. RAW files use a kind of TIFF representation internally so the camera pretty much already had the necessary smarts to handle TIFF.

Click to expand...

The way I understood this is that it is really the other way around. RAW files are in fact converted in the camera itself to TIFF format based on the camera's menu settings.

Marco,

No. A NEF file contains raw sensor data, the in-camera settings, and a small JPEG rendered from that raw data using those in-camera settings.

The raw data is exactly that, raw sensor data. The format of that data is similar to a TIFF file format. The raw data has no in-camera settings applied to it.

Scott

Murray Bowles · Mar 23, 2010

"If you know you have the correct exposure and white balance"...

A bit misleading. In a scene with wide dynamic range, the best possible single exposure can still produce an image where some shadow details need to be significantly lightened, in which case, RAW would be preferable.

ocrampix · Mar 23, 2010

Murray Bowles said:
"If you know you have the correct exposure and white balance"...

A bit misleading. In a scene with wide dynamic range, the best possible single exposure can still produce an image where some shadow details need to be significantly lightened, in which case, RAW would be preferable.

That's why I've set up the DOF Preview button for NEF+JPEG, and in case of doubt, I shoot both.

Marco
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