2007.07.04 21:36 "Re: [Tiff] BigTIFF extension", by Toby Thain

On 4-Jul-07, at 6:23 PM, kemp@extelligence.net wrote:

Which is going to cause mucho confusion when a user is trying to

>>> open

SOMETHING.TIF with a tool they expect can process TIFF (which they know is implied by .TIF).

If there's any doubt that these are TIFF files, IMHO, the file format should have never been associated with TIFF - call it BigFileFormat (BFF)... or some such.

Files ending in .tif, cannot, in many cases, be processed by programs that can see .tif in their file open dialogs.

The diagnostic is vastly different, however, as Phil just proved.

This is just another case. 90% of the programs out there can't handle tiles, or 16-bit images, or layers, or JPEG compression, or LogLuv compression, etc, which are all valid TIFF files - why is this any different?

Unhelpful and confusing diagnostics is one difference.

But it's not really the same, since virtually NO program that processes classic TIFF can process ANY BigTIFF. Users already understand that certain flavours of TIFF are off limits in their workflow, and error messages are typically more helpful in this case.

With respect to Joris, of course - whose position is firmly that "BigTIFF is TIFF" - is this not exactly the sort of profound format incompatibility that a different extension can usefully signify?

--Toby

Kemp Watson

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