Compress a TIFF
Shrink a TIFF and keep the .tif ending your software or your archive expects.
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How it works
Add your images
Drag and drop, paste, or pick files. They upload over an encrypted connection.
Pick a quality or a target size
Use the quality slider, or tell it exactly how many KB or MB you need.
Download
Save each file, or grab them all at once as a ZIP.
Many TIFF files are far larger than they need to be, because scanners and cameras often write them with no compression at all: three bytes for every pixel, whatever the picture shows. The format itself allows several kinds of compression. This page writes your TIFF again with one of them, so the file gets smaller and is still a TIFF.
Which kind is used depends on the quality slider. From 90 upward the result is lossless, packed with LZW; every pixel is unchanged. Below 90, where this page starts, the picture inside the TIFF is compressed as JPEG, which is lossy and many times smaller. Pictures with transparency are always written losslessly.
Up to twenty files run at once without an account. TIFFs are uploaded over an encrypted connection and processed on our own servers, and nothing stays there for more than one hour.
Lossless or lossy: choose by what the file is for
Set the slider to 90 or pick Lossless mode when the TIFF is a master: an archive scan, a file for further editing, artwork going to a printer. LZW typically halves an uncompressed scan, and does much better on drawings and text. Every program that reads TIFF reads LZW.
Stay at the starting quality of 80 when the file only has to be looked at and must stay a TIFF because a system insists on the ending. A 26 MB scan of an A4 page becomes 1 to 2 MB. Be aware of two things. The loss is real, though invisible at normal viewing. And TIFF with JPEG compression inside, while standard, is read by most software but not by all: some older scanning, mapping and print tools refuse it. Test one file with the receiving system before converting a thousand.
What is not carried over
This is a picture compressor and not a full TIFF editor, and a few TIFF features are flattened on the way. Of a multi-page file, only the first page is written. Layers from an image editor are merged into the visible picture. Files in CMYK are converted to sRGB, the colour space of screens.
The last point matters for print work. If a printer has asked for a CMYK TIFF, do not put it through this page; send the original, or compress it with the tool that made it. Metadata such as scanner and camera information is removed by default and can be kept through the editor's metadata setting.
Does it have to stay a TIFF?
People often keep the format out of habit. If nothing downstream requires TIFF, there is usually a better container. For a lossless copy, PNG is as exact as LZW TIFF, about the same size, and opens in every browser and office program. For a small file to send or view, a plain JPG is the same compression as a JPEG-in-TIFF without the compatibility question. Both are in the Format menu of the same editor, so you can compare the sizes before deciding.
Frequently asked questions
Is the compressed TIFF lossless?
At quality 90 and above, or in Lossless mode, yes. Below 90 the picture is JPEG-compressed inside the TIFF, which is lossy.
How much smaller will my TIFF get?
About half with lossless LZW for a typical scan, and ten to twenty times with JPEG compression at quality 80.
Will my software open the result?
LZW TIFF opens everywhere. JPEG-compressed TIFF opens in most current programs; try one file first if the destination is older or specialised software.
What happens to a TIFF with several pages?
Only the first page is processed. Split the file into single pages first if you need all of them.
Is the pixel size changed?
No, unless you switch on Resize. For scans made at 600 dpi, reducing to 50 percent is often the biggest saving of all.
How large can the TIFF be?
20 MB on the free plan and 200 MB on Pro, up to 50 megapixels.