2009.02.27 03:07 "Re: [Tiff] OT: Text layer possible in tiff format?", by Chris Cox

Yes, Kodak stuffed a lot of non-standard, undocumented stuff into their files.

For Photoshop, the text has to be pixel accurate - what one user sees, all users should see. That requires the same exact layout and rasterization engine everywhere. So, Photoshop's text layers are not a good candidate for sharing with other apps.

If you just want comments, that could be standardized - since the exact rasterization doesn't matter. Of course, comments could just be added to standard XMP metadata and optionally rendered.

Chris

On 2/26/09 5:53 PM, "zhangweiwu@realss.com" <zhangweiwu@realss.com> wrote:

S Carlsen schrieb:

Joris, Zhang, and all,

Yes, it would certainly be possible to add constructs such as image layers, text layers, masks, and so on to TIFF. (There was actually a brief discussion of this topic at least as far back as May of 2004.) It would of course take a fair amount of commitment to make it happen. But if it did happen, if it were reasonably elegant and not too difficult to implement, and if it gained some momentum and popularity, I suspect that Photoshop would eventually support it.

Hi thanks for the comment.

If there could be effort on this, where should this effort be put? On Gimp TIFF save plugin? or could libtiff do something? I guess first thing that should be done should be in GIMP.

I remember some 10 years ago I used a software pre-installed on MS Windows, made by Kodak, called "Image". The software allows me to put comment text on TIFF images and save it in the tiff images. The other person who opens the tiff image can see and edit my comment. "Comment" is simply text above image layers. Does anyone know if Kodak stuffed a lot of non-standard information as comment into TIFF or it extended tiff in the "legal" way? If so they already have an implementation that contain text layers, only thing need to do is to work on gimp to make it compatible with that format.

I think Kodak's "Image" did not implement all the text attributes like hinting, anti-alias and so like. But in GIMP not all text decoration are implemented neither (e.g. not possible to set text underlined).