HELP PLEASE - I've been trying to open .tiff files since I updated to macOS BigSur. - lamen language only please

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Meemz2011 Author

Level 1

4 points

HELP PLEASE - I've been trying to open .tiff files since I updated to macOS BigSur. - lamen language only please

I ask this be responded to in a language a person that is NOT into coding, programming or an I.T. type user. I am an employee, I love using my MAC verses PC. I upgraded to BIGSUR, I always wait a while when the newest update comes out, because I don't want to be one of the first few that have to discover all the bugs and issues because I lack patience when it comes to finding issues and no quick simple fix. -

I have tried every suggestion I comprehend on these forums and I am unable to get the .tiff files to work. I've tried several different browsers, I've tried the download, upload, the drag and drop. It is a .tiff file that I locate online from a website that I need for my job, and to convert to a .pdf, using preview. WHAT other lamen terminology is out there for other suggestions. I've considered the specific file to be corrupted with an issue, but it's not just one, it's all.

Thanks and I hope no one takes offense to my request to speak in lamen terms, as I do not have the knowledge of IT people nor the patience.

iMac 21.5″ 4K, macOS 11.2

Posted on Apr 16, 2021 3:59 AM

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Answer 1

dialabrain

Level 10

136,517 points

Apr 16, 2021 4:51 AM in response to Meemz2011

Can you explain what problem you are having? Preview does support .tiff files. Preview can export .tiff files as PDFs. So, are you having a problem with Preview opening a .tiff file or exporting it? If you select one of the files and press command+i, does the Get Info list the Kind as TIFF image?

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Answer 2

Kurt Lang

Level 9

69,474 points

Apr 16, 2021 6:50 AM in response to Meemz2011

The TIF format is still heavily used - particularly in publishing - because it's still the best format for uncompressed data. JPEG is nearly as old and was intended to save space at the price of butchering the image with a permanent, lossy compression scheme. The higher the compression, the smaller and more useless the resulting image.

"Converting" a TIF to a PDF is mostly pointless as you're not converting anything. A PDF is a container file that can hold raster images (TIF, JPG, PNG, etc.), vector art (Illustrator, Freehand, etc.), fonts and other file types.

Preview used to be the worst possible way to do this. It had one setting for embedding images in a PDF, and the best way to describe that was destructive. You had no control over this. Preview would destroy all raster images in the PDF files it output by turning them into very highly compressed JPEGs and with a lower resolution than the original.

Newer versions of Preview now make the ability to trash an image an option by choosing "Reduce file size" in the Quartz filter during PDF output. Preview still does compress the images you save as a PDF, but thankfully, uses lossless LZW compression (or possibly as a PNG, which is also a lossless compression scheme) to do it. If you open a TIFF and a PDF of that same file saved from Preview in Photoshop and compare them, not one pixel changes from one file to the other. Proof that even though the PDF is smaller than the original TIFF, lossless compression was used for the PDF.

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Answer 3

Apr 16, 2021 4:52 AM in response to Meemz2011

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIFF

Very old format and superseded by more modern ones.

Most common image format is JPEG (.jpg).

PDF is also sort of an image format that allows you to print a document.

Explain your workflow and need for TIFF.

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HELP PLEASE - I've been trying to open .tiff files since I updated to macOS BigSur. - lamen language only please

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