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Author Topic: TIFF versus PSD or PSB in this Brave New World  (Read 28997 times)

fike

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TIFF versus PSD or PSB in this Brave New World
« on: May 09, 2013, 03:02:16 pm »

In light of all the drama relating to Adobe CC, I have been thinking about moving more of my work into TIFF format.  What does everyone else think about that?

Why do I want to do that?  The thing that bugs me most about CC is the fact that after I stop paying my subscription, I may no longer be able to access MY existing photo files (PSD).  If I stop using PSD/PSB and make everything TIFF, I can be more confident that someone will support it.

...and don't get me started on DNG.  Though I don't use it, I have always liked the IDEA of DNG, but it's dead to me now.

Sorry if this has been discussed in the other screaming-crazy thread about CC, but I wasn't ever going to get through 29 pages of forum postings and diatribes.
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digitaldog

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Re: TIFF versus PSD or PSB in this Brave New World
« Reply #1 on: May 09, 2013, 03:09:31 pm »

In light of all the drama relating to Adobe CC, I have been thinking about moving more of my work into TIFF format.  What does everyone else think about that?

Yes, you should! Unless you've got huge files over 4 Gigs, in which you'll need PSB. Otherwise, TIFF provides everything you need (OK, no duotone support), provides everything PSD does while being an open format that far more software app's can support.

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...and don't get me started on DNG.
OK. But it's a TIFF variant too.
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Schewe

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Re: TIFF versus PSD or PSB in this Brave New World
« Reply #2 on: May 09, 2013, 09:12:27 pm »

In light of all the drama relating to Adobe CC, I have been thinking about moving more of my work into TIFF format.  What does everyone else think about that?

Hum...guess who owns the TIFF file format?

If what you are interested in is an anti-Adobe crusade, use JPEG....

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texshooter

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Re: TIFF versus PSD or PSB in this Brave New World
« Reply #3 on: May 09, 2013, 09:23:31 pm »

Aren't there converters that can convert practically any format to any format? if so, your back is covered. And Why is TIFF better than DNG?
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chichornio

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Re: TIFF versus PSD or PSB in this Brave New World
« Reply #4 on: May 09, 2013, 09:42:45 pm »

Uncompressed Tiff, 16 bits, win or mac, it`s the only way to go. SSD storage is going to be cheaper every year.
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fike

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Re: TIFF versus PSD or PSB in this Brave New World
« Reply #5 on: May 09, 2013, 10:15:46 pm »

I hadn't noticed that tiff format was now owned by adobe. Bummer. They could flex some anti-competitive muscle if they wanted.

I'm not looking for alternatives as a way to be anti-adobe. My real intention is to future-proof myself so that if a day comes when I can no longer get PS for some reason, I can use alternatives.

Why no DNG for me?  I do panoramas and composite images. I don't think these can be saved as DNG.

Why no jpegs....they are not suitable because they are a lossy format, of course.

No, I'm not really mad at Adobe. They are a business and their job is to make as much money as possible. I am no more angry at Adobe than I would be at a lion eating a gazelle. It's in their nature. That doesn't mean I want to plan or trust that lion as a long-term business partner though. I will be watching for alternatives while I pay my subscription fee.

Now, what format should I use if something else does turn up? Tiff still seems the best bet.
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Alan Klein

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Re: TIFF versus PSD or PSB in this Brave New World
« Reply #6 on: May 09, 2013, 11:06:36 pm »

I think I'm going to scan documents into jpeg rather than pdf going forward.  Who knows about what Adobe will do there too?  Also, what about Bitmap .BMP.  I think that's the same pixel quantity as TIff and non-protected?  WOuldn't filing in bmp be the same as tiff?

Colorwave

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Re: TIFF versus PSD or PSB in this Brave New World
« Reply #7 on: May 09, 2013, 11:59:21 pm »

Uncompressed Tiff, 16 bits, win or mac, it`s the only way to go. SSD storage is going to be cheaper every year.

Out of curiosity, why is LZW compression to be avoided?
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Schewe

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Re: TIFF versus PSD or PSB in this Brave New World
« Reply #8 on: May 10, 2013, 12:31:59 am »

Out of curiosity, why is LZW compression to be avoided?

If you are working on 16 bit files, LZW compression will often (usually) result in a saved file that is larger that no compression at all. For 16 bit file, zip compression is the only useful compression scheme, for 8 bit files LZW is fine.
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Isaac

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Re: TIFF versus PSD or PSB in this Brave New World
« Reply #9 on: May 10, 2013, 01:17:08 am »

Hum...guess who owns the TIFF file format?

?  "Tagged Image File Format is one of the most popular and flexible of the current public domain raster file formats."
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Schewe

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Re: TIFF versus PSD or PSB in this Brave New World
« Reply #10 on: May 10, 2013, 01:34:53 am »

?  "Tagged Image File Format is one of the most popular and flexible of the current public domain raster file formats."

While TIFF-6 is in essence "public domain" because it's publicly documented and freely usable for no fees from Adobe, Adobe still "owns" the TIFF specification–meaning Adobe is free to work on a TIFF-7 spec.

Ironically, Adobe has granted to the ISO the right to use TIFF-6 on the TIFF-EP raw file format that is used as a basis for proprietary raw file specs. Adobe has also offered DNG as a standard to the ISO for the next rev of TIFF-EP which should (if/when it happens) make adoption a bit easier to swallow for the camera companies...
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Fine_Art

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Re: TIFF versus PSD or PSB in this Brave New World
« Reply #11 on: May 10, 2013, 01:46:57 am »

You might want to look into software that supports fits

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FITS
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Mark Songhurst

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Re: TIFF versus PSD or PSB in this Brave New World
« Reply #12 on: May 10, 2013, 02:01:39 am »

PDF is an ISO standard now.
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: TIFF versus PSD or PSB in this Brave New World
« Reply #13 on: May 10, 2013, 04:27:40 am »

Hum...guess who owns the TIFF file format?

If what you are interested in is an anti-Adobe crusade, use JPEG....

Hi Jeff,

You do not seem to understand the OP's issue. PSD is a proprietary Photoshop file format. TIFF is well documented, and source code is freely available, for creating input/output libraries that allow to read and write these types of files from various software applications.

I think, to answer the OP's question, TIFF would be a better alternative, especially because it allows to store a full Works-in-Progress layered version of your images. There may be some limitations as to maximum file size (2GB or 4GB depending on library used), but work is underway to create a Big-TIFF file format that doesn't have these pointer address issues.

Cheers,
Bart
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Schewe

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Re: TIFF versus PSD or PSB in this Brave New World
« Reply #14 on: May 10, 2013, 05:58:52 am »

You do not seem to understand the OP's issue. PSD is a proprietary Photoshop file format. TIFF is well documented, and source code is freely available, for creating input/output libraries that allow to read and write these types of files from various software applications.

Oh, I'm aware all right...I've advocated TIFF for years (for the same reason I advocate DNGs) and in fact there's a rather notorious thread here on LuLa that I explained that even the Photoshop engineers have indicated that the PSD is not really an optimal native file format for Photoshop :~)

YMMV...
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Alan Klein

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Re: TIFF versus PSD or PSB in this Brave New World
« Reply #15 on: May 11, 2013, 12:36:35 am »

What about .bmp?

Chris Pollock

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Re: TIFF versus PSD or PSB in this Brave New World
« Reply #16 on: May 11, 2013, 04:37:53 am »

No, I'm not really mad at Adobe. They are a business and their job is to make as much money as possible. I am no more angry at Adobe than I would be at a lion eating a gazelle. It's in their nature. That doesn't mean I want to plan or trust that lion as a long-term business partner though. I will be watching for alternatives while I pay my subscription fee.
I think you're making a mistake paying the subscription fee. You should just stick with CS6, which should be good for a long time to come. I think that one of the reasons why Adobe are moving to the rental model is that it's getting harder and harder to add new features to Photoshop that people think are worth an upgrade.

Sticking with CS6 will save you money, and you should retain the ability to open any files that you create for the foreseeable future. I doubt that you'll miss out on any "must have" features any time soon. Remember that you always have the option of subscribing later on if Adobe add a feature that you really need.
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32BT

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Re: TIFF versus PSD or PSB in this Brave New World
« Reply #17 on: May 11, 2013, 04:51:17 am »

They are a business and their job is to make as much money as possible.

This would be a really bad objective for any company. The maximum amount of money = all the money in the world. So, once they aggregated all the money in the world, then what?

You can trust a lion to kill and eat a gazelle every now and then. And they should. But it certainly becomes a problem if the lion starts to kill 2 gazelles, and eat only one. I find that a rather appropriate analogy for what is happening currently...

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fike

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Re: TIFF versus PSD or PSB in this Brave New World
« Reply #18 on: May 11, 2013, 08:29:37 am »

What about .bmp?

BMP has very large file sizes and no compression (lossless of course). Also, I'm not sure if BMP supports adjustment layers.
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fike

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Re: TIFF versus PSD or PSB in this Brave New World
« Reply #19 on: May 11, 2013, 08:30:49 am »

I think you're making a mistake paying the subscription fee. You should just stick with CS6, which should be good for a long time to come. I think that one of the reasons why Adobe are moving to the rental model is that it's getting harder and harder to add new features to Photoshop that people think are worth an upgrade.

Sticking with CS6 will save you money, and you should retain the ability to open any files that you create for the foreseeable future. I doubt that you'll miss out on any "must have" features any time soon. Remember that you always have the option of subscribing later on if Adobe add a feature that you really need.

Yes, I will stick with CS6 as long as I can.
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