2001.06.11 06:49 "Re: Tiff Revision 6.0", by Niles Ritter

Is there an easy way to identify the difference between Tiff 5.0 and 6.0 and is there software that will convert 5.0 to 6.0?

There is no versioning as such. The 5.0 and 6.0 only refer to the specification, not the format. All TIFF 5.0 compliant file is a TIFF 6.0 compliant file, but there are TIFF 6.0 compliant files that a TIFF 5.0 image reader may not be able to display (though it should be able to parse them).

The usual "TIFF 6.0" feature of an image is the tiling decomposition. If you run "tiffinfo" on your image (available at www.libtiff.org) and it indicates the presence of the TILE_WIDTH and TILE_LENGTH tags, rather than the ROWS_PER_STRIP tag, then it is a "TIFF 6.0" file.

Many programs can read tiled TIFF and save as strip-ed TIFF. The "tiffcp" program (also available at www.libtiff.org) is one such.

--Niles.

PS: There actually is a version-number in all TIFF files, but the answer is always 42 (no joke). Some TIFF trivia.