Tagged Image File Format
Image File Format – format for storing raster images. Tagged login Originally developed by Aldus, in collaboration with Microsoft for use with PostScript. TIFF has become a popular format for storing images with high color depth. It is used in scanning, faxing, OCR, in printing, is widely supported graphics applications. TIFF was chosen as the primary graphics format NeXTStep operating system and from the support of the format switched to Mac OS X. The company is the owner of specifications – Aldus Corporation – later merged with Adobe, now owns the copyright to these specifications.
File formats TIFF, usually have the extension. Tiff or. Tif.
The signature and the file header
The file header contains a signature and a link (offset) to the first substantial block of data in the file.
A signature file (magic number) TIFF consists of two parts:
Bytes 0-1 – to determine the byte order (represented by the code number system shestandtsaterichnoy and in text-based encoding ASCII):
49 49 («« II »») – in direct (little-endian) byte order, from the name brand processors Intel, using this procedure (see, for example, Intel x86)
4D 4D («MM») – in the opposite (big-endian) byte order, from the name brand processors Motorola, have used this order (see, eg, Motorola 680×0)
Bytes 2-3 – The ID format TIFF (42 – to standard TIFF, 43 – to BigTIFF 64-bit addressing), can be controlled by bytes 0-1):
2A 00 – with a little endian
00 2A – in reverse order of bytes
Thus, there are two possible signatures (depending on byte order):
49 49 2A 00 – with a little endian
4D 4D 00 2A – in reverse order of bytes
Further, bytes 4-7 specify an offset in bytes from the beginning of the file (-aligned WORD (machine word)) in the first IFD directory
