TIFF Format Overview

This topic provides information about the native TIFF codec available through Windows Imaging Component (WIC).

Codec Identity

The following table provides codec identification information.

Component Description
Formal Name(s) Tagged Image File Format (TIFF)
File Name Extension(s) tiff, tif
MIME type(s) image/tiff, image/tif
Specification Support TIFF Specification 6.0

 

The following table lists the GUIDs used to identify the native TIFF codec components.

Component Friendly Name GUID
Container Format GUID_ContainerFormatTiff 163bcc30-e2e9-4f0b-961da3e9fdb788a3
Decoder CLSID_WICTiffDecoder b54e85d9-fe23-499f-8b886acea7137502b
Encoder CLSID_WICTiffEncoder 0131be10-2001-4c5f-a9b0cc88fab64ce8

 

Encoding

The WIC encoding API are designed to be codec-independent and image encoding for WIC-enabled codecs is essentially the same. For more information about image encoding using the WIC API, see the Encoding Overview.

Encoder Options

WIC-enabled codecs differ at the encoding option level. Encoder options reflect the capabilities of an image encoder and each native codec supports a set of these encoder options. Encoder options can be basic WIC supported options available to all WIC enabled codes (though not necessarily supported) or codec-specific options designed by the image format codec. To manage these encoding options during the encoding process, WIC uses the IPropertyBag2 interface . For more information about using the IPropertyBag2 interface for WIC encoding , see the Encoding Overview.

The TIFF codec uses basic WIC options. The following table lists the WIC encoder options supported by the native TIFF codec.

Property Name VARTYPE Value Range Default Value
CompressionQuality VT_R4 0 - 1.0 0
TiffCompressionMethod VT_UI1 WICTiffCompressionOption WICTiffCompressionDontCare

If an encoder option is present in the IPropertyBag2 option list that the codec does not support, it is ignored.

CompressionQuality Option

Specifies the desired compression quality. 0.0 indicates the least efficient compression scheme available. Typically, this scheme results in a faster encode but larger output. A value of 1.0 specifies the most efficient compression scheme available. Typically, this scheme results in a longer encode but produces smaller output.

The default value is 0.

TiffCompressionMethod Option

Specifies the TIFF compression method.

The default value is WICTiffCompressionDontCare.

Decoding

The WIC decoding APIs are designed to be codec-independent and image decoding for WIC-enabled codecs is essentially the same. For more information about image decoding, see the Decoding Overview. For more information about using decoded image data, see the Bitmap Sources Overview.