TIFF vs PNG — Professional Imaging vs Web Standard
TIFF is the professional print and archival format; PNG is the web lossless standard. Here is which to use for your project.
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TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) and PNG (Portable Network Graphics) are both lossless image formats, but they serve fundamentally different audiences and use cases.
TIFF strengths:
- 16-bit colour depth for capturing full dynamic range from RAW processing
- CMYK colour space for professional printing and prepress
- Multi-page support (one TIFF file can contain an entire scanned document)
- LZW compression maintains lossless quality at reduced file size
- Industry standard for print, publishing, and scientific imaging
PNG strengths:
- Universal web browser support — the only lossless format that renders natively in every browser
- Alpha channel (transparency) fully supported
- Indexed colour for graphics with limited palettes (icons, logos)
- Smaller file sizes than TIFF for screen-resolution images
- Widely supported by all image editors without plugins
File size: For equivalent images, TIFF is typically larger than PNG due to its more complex structure. PNG uses Deflate compression that is well-optimised for web use.
Use TIFF when: delivering artwork to printers, archiving high-resolution scans, processing 16-bit RAW files, working in a CMYK colour space, or creating multi-page image documents.
Use PNG when: publishing images on websites, creating logos and icons with transparency, exporting screenshots for web use, or sharing images that may need to be re-edited.
Never use TIFF for web. Browsers do not render TIFF files. Convert to PNG (for lossless) or JPG/WebP (for lossy) before publishing online.
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