.TIF File Extension

High-quality graphics format often used for storing images with many colors, such as digital photos; short for "TIFF;" includes support for layers and multiple pages.

TIFF files can be saved in an uncompressed (lossless) format or may incorporate .JPEG (lossy) compression. They may also use LZW lossless compression, which reduces the TIFF file size, but does not reduce the quality of the image.

View the TIFF definition.

TIFF-compliant geospatial image file created in the GeoTIFF format; contains geographic or cartographic data embedded as tags within the file; enables users to embed GIS data in the file without deviating from the TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) format.

Since GeoTIFF files contain coordinates, GIS applications can map specific regions of the raster image to latitude and longitude coordinates.

NOTE: The GeoTIFF format uses the extensible features of the TIFF specification to add tagged metadata to the image.