...but I am experiencing a lot of frustrating problems with TIF files: they are not showing up in CO when I sync a folder and/or I get the beachball for 10-20 seconds when clicking on a TIF thumbnail.
Hi Benoit,
Hard to diagnose without the actual files. Of course, Capture One is a Raw file converter in the first place. It also allows to open some non-Raw files for convenience, but it is not a full fledged dedicated Image processing application like e.g. Photoshop. In addition, TIFFs can contain all sorts of image data (and other data) in many different layouts and with layers and masks and transparency that make no sense to Capture One (or other programs). So the very least that a TIFF should also contain is a flattened version of the composited image. It's the source program that determines what is written to the TIFF, Capture One and other programs can only try to deal with what they are offered.
My first question: is there a size limit to TiF files to be recognized by CO? I tested with some +/- 2GB files and saved them Zip compressed and then CO seems to see them better?
The TIFF format itself is limited to 4GB maximum, and 2GB may be the limit for certain TIFF library versions. That has to do with the size of the offset tag values that can be used in TIFFs, and whether they are so-called 'signed' or 'unsigned' 32bit integer values. These tags will therefore limit how far a pointer in the metadata tags part of the file can encode a jump inside the file to positions in the image data section. Depending on the circumstances it can also make a difference if the data is written as RGB triplets or as a separate R, a G, and a B layer. So the source program settings can make a difference. Within those pointer distances I do not think it matters much for Capture One what the width x height dimensions are, but there might be limits for a largest dimension for memory efficiency reasons. Many programs have limits of 32768 or 65535 pixels as the maximum dimension of a side, I'm not sure if that is an issue for C1.
Also what about TIF files with Alpha Channels? All this makes for a very limiting workflow even though the RAW are definitely nice
Transparency as a feature is not supported by C1 as far as I know, although I do not know if that renders a file inaccessible if there is also a flattened composite available. Again, C1 is not an image editor as such, it uses its own proprietary mechanisms for Layer adjustment masks. Some tasks are better done with dedicated applications anyway.
Cheers,
Bart