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Author Topic: Lightroom saves unconventional TIFFs  (Read 9989 times)

nemophoto

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Lightroom saves unconventional TIFFs
« on: April 02, 2007, 10:28:50 am »

I've come across a some consistently weird behavior which has effected my TIFF files from Canon RAW in LR.

I'll work with an image in LR and save it as a 16-bit TIFF, then open and edit more in PS. I often save incrementally when I'm working on an image with lots of layers and retouching. Eventually, I'll flatten and sharpen the image and covert to CMYK for publication.

Now here's the hitch. Sometimes, even if I do a "Save As. .", a new dialog won't open, it just saves the file. If I do a second "Save As. .", then I have the usual option to change to file name, and the parameters of the TIFF come up. Most of the time, the image will show ZIP compress (versus none or LZW), and the Per Channel Pixel Order is what I call "non-conventional". LR has created a the TIFF and saved it using "Per Channel -- RRGGBB" rather than "Interleaved - RGBRGB".

I usually catch this. However, one editorial went to publication recently and the printer had problems with two of the images RIP'ing properly. The images ended up being soft and slightly pixelated.

I opened the CMYK images, resaved them (my first tip off is that they would not render the thumbnails in Windows Explorer), and sure enough, the Pixel Order was out of whack and it showed ZIP compression on the file (not a layer ZIP compression). I'm convinced this was the root of the reproduction problem. I some how had not caught this when I saved my final work -- possibly under stress of trying to make FedEx for the deadline.

Why has Adobe foisted this on us as some sort of default saving of LR? I found this to be the case with the Beta and figured it was just a Beta-error. Saving a ZIP compressed TIFF and changing the Pixel order are, at this point, non-standard TIFF specifications. (In LR, when I export the TIFF, I specify "none" for compression.) These settings are fine if they are made as conscious decisions by a user for personal reasons (ZIP compressed files ARE smaller, especially because LZW for CMYK does not work -- makes the files even larger), but for pre-press, this is a disaster.

I know this is LR related because I've never encountered this when saving and working with 16-bit files from Capture One, Raw Shooter, Bibble or BreezeBrowser.
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Schewe

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Lightroom saves unconventional TIFFs
« Reply #1 on: April 02, 2007, 09:28:29 pm »

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Why has Adobe foisted this on us as some sort of default saving of LR? I found this to be the case with the Beta and figured it was just a Beta-error. Saving a ZIP compressed TIFF and changing the Pixel order are, at this point, non-standard TIFF specifications.[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=110224\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Uh, wrong...byte order and zip compression are both standard Tiff 6 specs...

The zip compression is optional (notice the compression options in export) so if somebody's rip barfs because of zip compression turn it off-or tell them to get a modern rip (something released AFTER the year 2000). As far byte order, that really dosn't matter.
« Last Edit: April 02, 2007, 09:29:19 pm by Schewe »
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digitaldog

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Lightroom saves unconventional TIFFs
« Reply #2 on: April 03, 2007, 08:15:10 am »

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Uh, wrong...byte order and zip compression are both standard Tiff 6 specs...

The zip compression is optional (notice the compression options in export) so if somebody's rip barfs because of zip compression turn it off-or tell them to get a modern rip (something released AFTER the year 2000). As far byte order, that really dosn't matter.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=110337\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Zip compression while cool does hose a pile of applications. I just ran into an issue with ImagePrint where it wouldn't open a Tiff file with Zip compression. The save dialog is sticky, so I saved some with compression without realizing it since Photoshop and apparently other Adobe app's have no such problems. Easy enough to resave without compression. Longer to write a bug report to the RIP vendor.
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Schewe

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« Reply #3 on: April 03, 2007, 08:57:17 am »

Yeah, Andrew, you ask John why IP can't use zip compressed tiffs...he doesn't have a good answer.

:~)

And it ain't a "pile" it's a very few...that don't support the complete tiff-6 spec.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2007, 08:58:28 am by Schewe »
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nemophoto

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Lightroom saves unconventional TIFFs
« Reply #4 on: April 04, 2007, 11:59:46 am »

Quote
Zip compression while cool does hose a pile of applications. I just ran into an issue with ImagePrint where it wouldn't open a Tiff file with Zip compression. The save dialog is sticky, so I saved some with compression without realizing it since Photoshop and apparently other Adobe app's have no such problems. Easy enough to resave without compression. Longer to write a bug report to the RIP vendor.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=110379\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Ditto. Jeff has a point, but I find few non-Adobe applications have have made the leap to the "new" TIFF specs. I don't like the fact that it (LR) defaults to these "newer" specs, even if I have specified "no compression". RIPs seem to not like it when the pixel order is changed. One would think we could use the "new" JPEG2000 specs by now, but many apps still don't support it. Hell, even Adobe makes it an "optional" file format plug-in on releases through CS2.
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eronald

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Lightroom saves unconventional TIFFs
« Reply #5 on: April 07, 2007, 04:57:51 am »

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Yeah, Andrew, you ask John why IP can't use zip compressed tiffs...he doesn't have a good answer.

:~)

And it ain't a "pile" it's a very few...that don't support the complete tiff-6 spec.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=110385\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Jeff lives in a world where the other guy can always be told to change his software and he always has money to buy himself new software. How nice to be a star.

I don't like apps which write strange files as I work with press people whom I send disks, and who are in a hurry. These pĂȘople really, really, don't care about me. I'm not a star like Jeff.

Another classic gotcha is Mac OS which writes Mac-only DVDs - the first time you Fed-ex a bunch of Mac DVDs to a client who uses PCs is the day you lose the client and the day you buy Toast.

Edmund
« Last Edit: April 07, 2007, 05:08:47 am by eronald »
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61Dynamic

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« Reply #6 on: April 07, 2007, 12:19:57 pm »

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I usually catch this. However, one editorial went to publication recently and the printer had problems with two of the images RIP'ing properly. The images ended up being soft and slightly pixelated.
That sounds more like someone on their end not knowing what they are doing.

Quote
Another classic gotcha is Mac OS which writes Mac-only DVDs - the first time you Fed-ex a bunch of Mac DVDs to a client who uses PCs is the day you lose the client and the day you buy Toast.
The Finder uses a HFS+/ISO 9660 hybrid format which is readable by Windows so something else is going on to cause that issue.
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Schewe

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« Reply #7 on: April 07, 2007, 03:53:30 pm »

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I don't like apps which write strange files as I work with press people whom I send disks, and who are in a hurry. These pĂȘople really, really, don't care about me. I'm not a star like Jeff.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=111119\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Well...I don't know where this "star" crap is coming from but I'll ignore that and mention that the Tiff-6 spec ain't new...it was finalized June 3rd, 1992 (by Aldus and MSFT). By my count that's almost 15 years ago...so, I would expect that other 3rd party software might have had time to catch up? You would think so huh?

The fact that some software _CAN'T_ read Tiff-6 files (and some ancient rips can't rip them) is maybe more an inditement of how poorly the prepress industry has adopted standards and how tolerant some people are willing to be.

Any software that supports Tiff-6 should support ALL OF TIFF-6, don't ya think? And if software doesn't support Tiff-6, I would be inclined to jump on the authors of the software to bring their support up to the 21st century...I mean it ain't like the Tiff-6 specs hasn't been freely and completely available since 1992 or so...
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nemophoto

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« Reply #8 on: April 10, 2007, 07:48:57 am »

Jeff,

I'm a bit at a loss. Just exactly WHAT are you calling the specs of of TIFF-6? I agree that software should be kept up to "today's" specs, but look at how long a company like Quark milked their program before finally being forced to suddenly play catchup with InDesign. OSX was out several years before they fully supported the OS. It's typical in the industry. On the Microsoft side, look at how many corporations still run Win2000. I have a client that has not updated it's AD's computers since they bought G4's nearly five years ago. They only updated to OSX in 2006!

With that state of affairs, it's hardly surprising that there is software out there that doesn't support the "new" TIFF standard. (I'm just as guilty about holding onto older programs. I still run a forms program that operated under Win 3.1! Not that I haven't bought two other prgrams to try to replace it -- the newer ones just aren't as good or user friendly.)

Quote
Well...I don't know where this "star" crap is coming from but I'll ignore that and mention that the Tiff-6 spec ain't new...it was finalized June 3rd, 1992 (by Aldus and MSFT). By my count that's almost 15 years ago...so, I would expect that other 3rd party software might have had time to catch up? You would think so huh?

The fact that some software _CAN'T_ read Tiff-6 files (and some ancient rips can't rip them) is maybe more an inditement of how poorly the prepress industry has adopted standards and how tolerant some people are willing to be.

Any software that supports Tiff-6 should support ALL OF TIFF-6, don't ya think? And if software doesn't support Tiff-6, I would be inclined to jump on the authors of the software to bring their support up to the 21st century...I mean it ain't like the Tiff-6 specs hasn't been freely and completely available since 1992 or so...
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=111195\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
« Last Edit: April 10, 2007, 07:51:41 am by nemophoto »
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61Dynamic

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« Reply #9 on: April 10, 2007, 12:58:10 pm »

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I'm a bit at a loss. Just exactly WHAT are you calling the specs of of TIFF-6?
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
What you called "unconventional" is what is part of the TIFF-6 spec.

[a href=\"http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/PDFS/TN/TIFF6.pdf]http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/PDFS/TN/TIFF6.pdf[/url]
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nemophoto

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« Reply #10 on: April 11, 2007, 01:37:58 pm »

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What you called "unconventional" is what is part of the TIFF-6 spec.

http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/PDFS/TN/TIFF6.pdf
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=111721\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Thanks for the eye-glazing link. I congratulate you if you are able to wade through all the tech jargon. Upon first inspection, I could not find anything regarding Pixel Order: Interleaved versus Per Channel.

I decided to do a test and see how many programs I have that could open/use/display properly TIFF images saved in Per Channel order, versus the conventional Interleaved. (That is, after all, what this discussion is about: Adobe's use of Per Channel saving TIFFs from LR, rather than Interleaved.) The following is a list of non-Adobe programs (with the exception of one) and whether they could properly display/use an Per Channel RGB TIFF.

Windows Explorer                       FAIL
BreezeBrowser                           FAIL
ACDSee Pro (v. 8.1)                   PASS
ACDSee 3.1                               PASS
Canvas X (like PS & Illustrator     FAIL
combined, now from ACDSee)
Xtivity (flash design program)      FAIL
FrontPage 2000                           FAIL
Illustrator 10                              FAIL
StudioPrint 12 RIP                       FAIL
Picto iCorrect EditLab 6.0             PASS

I rest my case. Regardless of whether Per Channel is in the 1992 TIFF specs, Per Channel Pixel Order is poorly supported, and therefore, by definition of commonly accepted practice, non-standard. If you try to save a TIFF in Photoshop with Per Channel, you even get a warning message that some browsers will not be able to read the file. As a side note, one ends up with a larger file saved in this manner.

Nemo
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Schewe

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« Reply #11 on: April 11, 2007, 04:04:33 pm »

Quote
I decided to do a test and see how many programs I have that could open/use/display properly TIFF images saved in Per Channel order, versus the conventional Interleaved. (That is, after all, what this discussion is about: Adobe's use of Per Channel saving TIFFs from LR, rather than Interleaved.)
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=111906\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Just for yucks, I exported a tiff from Lightroom, opened it in Photoshop CS2 and did a save as a tiff in a new location...I did NOT include compression in Lightroom and of course, the save as didn't have compression...it also had the Pixel Order already set to Interleaved (RGBRGB). So, at least on MY machine, my Lightroom tiffs are completely "conventional".

So, that begs the question, what's different about you? Are you _SURE_ Lightroom was actually saving tiffs in Per Channel? Or could you possible altered the default tiff setting youself? Remember, when doing a save as, the file format options default to the ones in the file...the only way I know to alter that is to do a save as with different options either directly or in an action (where the file format options are recorded).

Oh, yeah, the Byte Order was Mac...not that that matters in this day and age (unless you are still running DOS). And yes...this was on a Mac so I did a test on a PC...no compression, Pixel Order was Interleaved and byte order was IBM PC. Only the byte order was different.

So, exactly HOW did YOU get Per Channel out of Lightroom? Are you sure YOU didn't alter the Pixel Order yourself in Photoshop?
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suliko

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« Reply #12 on: April 16, 2007, 05:14:04 pm »

hey,

I want to ask a really dull question which is skirted around through this thread...
What is the difference between Interleaved and Per Channel ordering? Other then compatibility is there a benefit to one over the other?

matt
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eronald

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« Reply #13 on: April 18, 2007, 08:35:51 am »

Quote
hey,

I want to ask a really dull question which is skirted around through this thread...
What is the difference between Interleaved and Per Channel ordering? Other then compatibility is there a benefit to one over the other?

matt
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=112725\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Well, I expect it's skirted because nobody here is competent to answer it.

I'd guess that interleaved probably lets  you print stripes by reading the file sequentially, provided the orientation is right while per-channel forces you to read the whole file into memory for Ripping.

On the same way, a multi-color stripe acquisition device (scanner) that digitises several colors at each point or in a stripe before moving on would naturally write interleaved files.

I expect that certain other devices eg. filter-wheel cameras or a scanner that does a whole pass in one color before changing the filters can more easily write per-channel than interleaved.

Edmund
« Last Edit: April 18, 2007, 08:44:45 am by eronald »
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Schewe

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« Reply #14 on: April 18, 2007, 08:18:22 pm »

Quote
I want to ask a really dull question which is skirted around through this thread...
What is the difference between Interleaved and Per Channel ordering? Other then compatibility is there a benefit to one over the other?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=112725\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

From Mark Hamburg: "Per channel probably would compress better but it won't be readable by as many things though I suspect that per channel (i.e., planar) support has been in the TIFF spec for a long time."
« Last Edit: April 18, 2007, 08:18:46 pm by Schewe »
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