2007.07.04 19:59 "Re: [Tiff] BigTIFF extension", by Phil Harvey

On 4-Jul-07, at 2:52 PM, Toby Thain wrote:

Which is going to cause mucho confusion when a user is trying to open SOMETHING.TIF with a tool they expect can process TIFF (which they know is implied by .TIF).

For reference, here are the error messages when I try to open a
BigTIFF image with extension TIF or BTF in a few software packages
that I happened to have at hand:

Adobe Photoshop 7.0 (TIF):
   "Could not open "Olympics8.tif" because the file is not a TIFF file."
Adobe Photoshop 7.0 (BTF):

"Could not open "Olympics8.btf" because it is not the right kind of document."

Microsoft Word (TIF):

"This application cannot open this file. This file is an unsupported graphic format or may be damaged. Try opening the graphic in another application."

Microsoft Word (BTF):

"Office cannot use the picture file you selected. The file may be damaged or it may be a file type that Office does not recognize. For more information about picture file types you can use in Office, see Help."

Apple Preview (TIF):
   "Couldn't open the file. It may be corrupt or a file format that
    Preview doesn't recognize."
Apple Preview (BTF):
    [will not open the file]

GraphicConverter (same two errors for TIF or BTF):
   "The TIFF internal directory is corrupt. The file can not be
    opened."
   "Can't open TIFF because important tags are missing."

- Phil