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November 2005
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2005.11.03 15:44 "Re: Writing bilevel and transparent TIFFs efficiently", by Bob Friesenhahn
On Wed, 2 Nov 2005, Rupali Holmes wrote: > > I'm trying to write a bilevel image as a transparent TIFF. So one of > the colors is always transparent, and the other is opaque. What is the > best way to do this? I can't use G3 or G4 because the colors are not > necessarily black and white. The one option I see is to write an RGB > image with an associated alpha but that doesn't seem very efficient. Is > there a better way to do this? What type of compression should be used? The question is not really what is possible or produces the most compact result. The question is really what is the most compact format that existing software can be expected to read. As far as I am aware the photometric is independent of the compression used. Certainly CCITT FAX standards require particular photometrics. I don't see that using G3 or G4 compression absolutely *requires* using PHOTOMETRIC_MINISBLACK or PHOTOMETRIC_MINISWHITE. Some readers may assume that. It is possible to use an associated alpha channel with palette (PHOTOMETRIC_PALETTE) images, but I am not sure if most software can deal with that. It would support a small file size if the bits per sample is a small value (e.g. 1) and the palette has just two entries. There is also an option in TIFF to supply a separate mask image. Use of a separate mask image is also likely to be poorly supported except for by specialized software. Ultimately, the PHOTOMETRIC_RGB photometric with associated alpha at 8 bits per sample is the best supported by readers even though it is not very efficient. In the end, the GIF file format or other formats which support the notion of a "transparent color" will be much more efficient than TIFF for portabily storing this image in minimal space. Bob ====================================== Bob Friesenhahn bfriesen@simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/ GraphicsMagick Maintainer, http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/