TIF format?

[rgraber]

What does TIF format mean? How do you get a document into that format?

Ruth

[Carbone]

TIF is a format for saving images (I belive Adobe is behind it, at some point). It is a lossless format, even with compression. It's the format of choice when you have an image which you don't want to compress with loss of quality. It supports layers, but it can be big. Some commercial press requires customers send their work in this format.

For the best compatibility though and if you don't have to share your work with anyone (except on the web with Save For Web), save as Photoshop native format, the PSD document.

Hope this helps!

Ray

[rgraber]

It is for a magazine. Can I convert it to TIFF in elements?

Ruth

[Daviskw]

Hi Ruth

Any picture you can open in Elements can be saved in the Tif format. Just use the save as funtion and use the default settings

Butch

[Wendy]

Hi Butch ...

I think that Save As defaults to the last settings you used so Ruth may need to change it to tif :)

Wendy

[PaulH]

from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiff
"Tagged Image File Format (abbreviated TIFF) is a file format for mainly storing images, including photographs and line art. Originally created by the company Aldus for use with PostScript printing, TIFF is a popular format for high color depth images, along with JPEG and PNG. TIFF format is widely supported by image-manipulation applications such as Photoshop by Adobe, GIMP, and Paint Shop Pro by Jasc, by desktop publishing and page layout applications, such as QuarkXPress and Adobe InDesign, and by scanning, faxing, word processing, optical character recognition, and other applications. Adobe Systems, which acquired the PageMaker publishing program from Aldus, now controls the TIFF specification.

The phrase "Tagged Image File Format", or, actually, "Tag Image File Format", was used as a subtitle in some earlier versions of the TIFF specification. The current TIFF specification, TIFF 6.0, makes no mention of these phrases. It's just "TIFF". (The author of the original TIFF specification wanted TIFF to stand for "The Image File Format", but he was overruled by Aldus' president Paul Brainerd on the grounds that it sounded presumptuous.)

[Daviskw]

You are right Wendy that was confusing of me.... I meant the tiff options... but even at that she may need to change the platform type

Butch

[Hamlet 77]

When I got PSE 3 I saved a number of photos in TIFF cos there was no way I wanted to lose any of them in any form, the problem is the size, less than 200 photos took up three cds.

I have learnt there is no need to go so mad, but I was vulnerable at the time, family pet died and these were the only photos I had of him... I do occasionally think about trying to convert my catalogue to TIFF, but then the medication kicks in and makes me realise that a) the file sizes would be huge b) keeping multiple copies takes up less space and is just as safe c) they would still be based on the original format i.e. JPEG d) I would be dead before I could convert ALL my photographs to TIFF and e) I suspect as I was new to PSE just cos a file size was enormous it didn't make a photo any better or less likely to dissappear just because I used a different file type.

[Killman]

This brings me to a question that expounds on this topic. I recently 'borrowed' Scott Kelby's new book; PSE 4.0 for the Digital Camera (not sure if that is the Exact title, but one of the first things he says in the book is to save all of your JPG photos (I presume the ones you would be editing) in TIFF format.
The reason being that each time you open the JPG photo and do anything to and a then resave it, that it compresses the photo. Over time it will degenerate the photo so bad that it becomes useless. the example he showed was a JPG photo saved something like 10 or 20 times and the results were astounding.
I guess the object of photo editing is to open up the original, make all of the necessary changes to make it a great photo, save it and be done with it. But what if you know you will be using the photo to make a collage, or in a scrapbook, or whatever? I guess that if the workflow is to open your original JPG, make the changes and save as a PSD and then discard the changes to the JPG, when you close the JPG it shouldn't compress and your original should still be 'clean'. Is that true?