Picture and Fax viewer with tiled TIFFs

[Steve McLellan]

Hi,

I'm experimenting with writing TIFF files using libtiff, specifically
writing tiled TIFFs. Having written what I presume is a valid tiled TIFF
(that opens in Photoshop and on our Mac's email client, amongst other
things), neither Picture or Fax Viewer, or Paint, will open the image. I've
noticed before that Windows isn't able to display EXIF tags attached to TIFF
files (except about 5 very basic tags), so I'm wondering whether Windows'
TIFF support doesn't fully support the standard or whether there's something
I'm doing that won't allow Windows to view it correctly, while other clients
can.

Any light that can be shed on this would be much appreciated.

Steve

 

[gary_g]

I scanned some negs on a Mac and saved then as TIF's.

I just now opened them on XP with Picture & Fax Viewer ok, but Paint doesn't
work properly.

Gary G

 

[Steve McLellan]

Hi,

Thanks for the response. It's a particular problem with TIFFs that are
tiled; the TIFF spec allows for two main methods of writing; scanline (which
is the most commonly supported) and tiled. Tiling has an advantage for us
(and possibility a necessity) because we need to write enormous images (tens
of thousands of pixels square), and we face memory constraints if we try to
grab huge blocks of continuous memory. Tiling would allow us to get
reasonably small chunks and write them sequentially, whereas scanline
requires us to grab a large amount of memory 00000s of pixels wide and a
couple of hundred pixels deep.

Steve

 

[John Inzer]

=======================================
I know very little about MultiPage TIFF files but
thought maybe the following articles might offer
some clues:

(329270) You Cannot View TIFF Images
Using Windows Picture and Fax Viewer
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=329270

Windows Picture and Fax Viewer Annotation overview
http://tinyurl.com/qtk2


It might be worth a try to download and install
the freeware IrfanView...it's possible that it can
open your files.

IrfanView 3.85
http://www.tucows.com/preview/194967.html
(get the plug-ins too)

--

John Inzer
Picture It! MVP
return e-mail disabled

Picture It! Support Center
http://support.microsoft.com/?pr=pic

 

[Steve McLellan]

As an update to this, for anoyone playing with TIFs, it would appear from my
(admittedly brief) further testing that Picture and Fax Viewer doesn't
support TIFFs with colour planes saved separately. This, unlike tiling, IS
part of the baseline spec. Windows developers, defend yourselves!

Steve