TIF format
Tag Image File Format (TIF for short in Chinese, TIFF for short in foreign languages and Tag Image File Format for short) is a common image file format developed by Aldus and Microsoft for desktop publishing system. TIFF format is flexible and changeable. It defines four different formats: TIFF-B for binary images, TIFF-G for black and white gray images, TIFF-P for color images with palette, TIFF-R for RGB true color images.
TIFF supports a variety of coding methods, including RGB compression, RLE compression, JPEG compression and so on.
TIFF is one of the most complex image file formats in existence. It has expansibility, convenience and modifiability. It can provide image editing programs running in IBMPC and other environments.
The TIFF image file consists of three data structures: the file header, one or more directories containing tag pointers called IFD, and the data itself.
The first data structure in TIFF image file is called image file header or IFH. This structure is the only fixed position part in a TIFF file; the IFD image file directory is an information block with variable byte length, and the Tag tag is the core part of the TIFF file. All the image parameters are defined in the image file directory, and each directory entry in the directory contains one parameter of the image.
