Archiving TIFFS – should I make them Mac or IBM/PC?

DA
Posted By
Don_Andrews
May 26, 2005
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552
Replies
11
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Closed
I’ve got hundreds of photos to scan for a historical archive project. I’m using PC, but it’s conceivable that someone in the future may want to access these files on a Mac.

Should I save each TIFF in the Mac format?

It’s my understanding that PC’s can open either Mac or PC TIFFs, but Macs only open Macs. Is that right?
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BL
Bob Levine
May 26, 2005
No, it’s not. A TIF is a TIF.

Bob
L
LenHewitt
May 27, 2005
Don,

It’s been many years since the byte order of TIFFs was of any concern whatsoever. These days all applications can handle either byte order without problem.
D
deebs
May 27, 2005
Would DNG be better?
WR
William Robertson
May 27, 2005
In my experience its the other way round. As a frequent user of both systems I have more problems trying to open Mac TIFFs on a PC, particularly when saved to CDs. Hitting the appropriate "byte order" button in the Mac save dialogue definitely helps. Better still – save to a "pen" drive as these appear to be genuinely cross-platform compatible. Good luck.

William Robertson.

wrote in message
I’ve got hundreds of photos to scan for a historical archive project. I’m using PC, but it’s conceivable that someone in the future may want to access these files on a Mac.

Should I save each TIFF in the Mac format?

It’s my understanding that PC’s can open either Mac or PC TIFFs, but Macs only open Macs. Is that right?
DA
Don_Andrews
May 27, 2005
What’s DNG? Do you mean PNG?

If byte order doesn’t matter, why do they even give people a choice?
BL
Bob Levine
May 27, 2005
http://www.adobe.com/products/dng/main.html

As for the byte order…it’s a relic of days gone by.

Bob
L
LenHewitt
May 27, 2005
Don,

DNG is the ‘new open standard’ for digital images and stands for ‘Digital Negative’.

why do they even give people a choice?<<

Good question! I don’t think there is a god answer to go with it.
DA
Don_Andrews
May 27, 2005
Thanks for the responses. When I did a google search on this question the other day, I got really confused. Most of the info I found was from a couple years ago. It made this byte order thing sound like a big deal.

I’m not brave enough to switch over to DNG at this point. I’m also planning on bringing the TIFFS into my video edit software. Not sure if it takes DNGs.
MD
Michael_D_Sullivan
May 31, 2005
The TIFF standard, unlike some previous standards, was designed to accommodate both Motorola (Mac) and Intel (PC) byte orders. It includes a data element that records which byte order was used in creating the file, and thus a program reading the file uses this to determine which byte order to use in accessing the data. It works equally well on either platform. If an Intel CPU is being used to read Mac data, the program simply uses a routine to flip the bytes around, and vice versa. Any program that doesn’t have the ability to access both flavors of TIFFs in this day and age should be discarded fast.
R
RSD99
May 31, 2005
"Michael_D_Sullivan" posted:
"…
Any program that doesn’t have the ability to access both flavors of TIFFs in this day and age should be discarded fast.
…."

IIRC
The TIFF file actually has a passage that requires that any program must be able to access both flavors of TIFFs in order to be considered "compliant."

wrote in message
The TIFF standard, unlike some previous standards, was designed to
accommodate both Motorola (Mac) and Intel (PC) byte orders. It includes a data element that records which byte order was used in creating the file, and thus a program reading the file uses this to determine which byte order to use in accessing the data. It works equally well on either platform. If an Intel CPU is being used to read Mac data, the program simply uses a routine to flip the bytes around, and vice versa. Any program that doesn’t have the ability to access both flavors of TIFFs in this day and age should be discarded fast.
R
RSD99
May 31, 2005
Typo:
Is
The TIFF file actually has a passage

Should Be:
The TIFF file specification actually has a passage

"RSD99" wrote in message
"Michael_D_Sullivan" posted:
"…
Any program that doesn’t have the ability to access both flavors of TIFFs in this day and age should be discarded fast.
…"

IIRC
The TIFF file actually has a passage that requires that any program must
be
able to access both flavors of TIFFs in order to be considered
"compliant."
wrote in message
The TIFF standard, unlike some previous standards, was designed to
accommodate both Motorola (Mac) and Intel (PC) byte orders. It includes a data element that records which byte order was used in creating the file, and thus a program reading the file uses this to determine which byte
order
to use in accessing the data. It works equally well on either platform.
If
an Intel CPU is being used to read Mac data, the program simply uses a routine to flip the bytes around, and vice versa. Any program that
doesn’t
have the ability to access both flavors of TIFFs in this day and age
should
be discarded fast.

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