Tiff File Format

A TIFF File Format Primer

There are 5 popular TIFF compression types:
TIFF Group 3 – originally introduced back in the early 1980’s. Popularized as the standard format for sending FAX images though fax cards, Encodes images using Huffman G3 compression, as defined by CCITT and ITU fax standards, where each page is separately defined in the TIFF file. Offers very good compression of text, and good compression of bi-tonal images. Used extensively as a storage format for scanned black and white documents. Has the additional advantage that if one bit changes, you only loose the rest of the line, not the whole image. read more »

TIFF file format specifications:

TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) is a general-purpose, tag-based file format for storing and interchanging raster images. A TIFF file consists of a header, one or more Image File Directories (IFD) and the image data. More than one page can be contained in a file; there is one IFD and one image data block for each image. The header identifies the file as a TIFF file, specifies the byte-order of the data and the location of the first IFD. The IFD contains the number of image tag entries, the tag entries themselves, and the location of the next IFD, if any. read more »