How TIFF Works
TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) is the heavyweight raster format of professional photography, scanning, and printing. Its defining characteristic is in the name: it is tag-based. A TIFF file starts with a small header that points to one or more Image File Directories (IFDs), and each IFD is a table of tags describing the image, its dimensions, bit depth, color model, and exactly how the pixel data is arranged. This flexible, self-describing structure is why TIFF can store almost any kind of raster image and why it has survived for decades as the professional archival standard.
That flexibility is also TIFF's complexity. Because so much is optional and tag-driven, two TIFF files can be very different internally, one uncompressed, another using lossless LZW or ZIP compression, another holding multiple pages, another in a wide-gamut color space with 16 bits per channel. TIFF can even hold JPEG-compressed data. In practice TIFF is almost always used for high-quality, lossless storage: it preserves every detail, supports deep color and layers, and is the format scanners, high-end cameras, and print workflows trust for masters.
TIFF's standout professional features are high bit depth (16 bits per channel for smooth gradients and heavy editing headroom), support for CMYK and other print color spaces, multiple images or pages in a single file (useful for multi-page scanned documents), and optional layers and transparency. These are the capabilities that matter in print and archival work and that consumer formats like JPG simply do not offer.
Where TIFF Is Used
TIFF lives in professional and preservation contexts rather than the web. Document scanning and archiving is a major use: libraries, governments, and businesses store scanned documents as multi-page TIFFs because the format is lossless, stable, and well-documented for the long term. Professional photography uses TIFF as an editing and delivery master, since it preserves full quality through repeated edits. Print production relies on TIFF for its CMYK and high-bit-depth support. In all these cases, quality and longevity matter more than file size.
Limitations
TIFF's drawbacks are the flip side of its strengths. Files are very large, because the format prioritizes quality over size, so a TIFF can be enormous compared with a JPG or WebP of the same image. No web browser displays TIFF, so it cannot be used directly on a website; web images must be converted to JPG, PNG, or WebP first. And its very flexibility means compatibility can be inconsistent: a TIFF using an unusual compression or tag combination may not open in every program, even though common TIFFs are widely supported. For these reasons TIFF is an archival and production format, not a sharing or delivery one.
TIFF vs Other Formats
Against JPG and WebP, TIFF trades small size for perfect, lossless quality and professional features; you keep masters in TIFF and export JPG or WebP copies for the web. Against PNG, which is also lossless, TIFF goes further with 16-bit color, CMYK, multi-page support, and print-oriented features, but at the cost of much larger files and no browser support, PNG is the lossless format for the web, TIFF for print and archives. Against camera RAW, TIFF is a finished, standardized image rather than unprocessed sensor data, so it is the common delivery master after RAW editing is complete.
