# TIFF Tools Overview

This software distribution comes with a small collection of programs for converting non-TIFF format images to TIFF and for manipulating and interrogating the contents of TIFF images. Several of these tools are useful in their own right. Many of them however are more intended to serve as programming examples for using the TIFF library.

## Manual pages

- fax2ps
- fax2tiff
- pal2rgb
- ppm2tiff
- raw2tiff
- rgb2ycbcr
- thumbnail
- tiff2bw
- tiff2pdf
- tiff2ps
- tiff2rgba
- tiff2cmp
- tiffcp
- tiffcrop
- tiffdither
- tiffdump
- tiffgt
- tiffinfo
- tiffmedian
- tiffset
- tiffsplit

## Device-dependent Programs

There are two device-dependent programs that serve as simple examples for writing programs to display and save TIFF images.

Device-dependent programs
Tool | Description
--- | ---
tiffgt | Display the contents of one or more TIFF images using OpenGL. The software makes extensive use of the `TIFFRGBAImage` facilities described elsewhere.

## Device-independent Programs

The remaining programs should be device-independent:

Device-dependent programs
Tool | Description
--- | ---
fax2ps | Convert a Group 3- or Group 4- compressed TIFF to PostScript that is significantly more compressed than is generated by tiff2ps (unless tiff2ps writes PS Level II)
fax2tiff | Convert raw Group 3 or Group 4 facsimile data to TIFF
pal2rgb | Convert a Palette-style image to a full color RGB image by applying the colormap
ppm2tiff | A quick hack that converts 8-bit PPM format images to TIFF
raw2tiff | Create a TIFF file from raw data
rgb2ycbcr | Convert an RGB, grayscale, or bilevel TIFF image to a YCbCr TIFF image; it’s mainly provided for testing
thumbnail | Copy a bilevel TIFF to one that includes 8-bit greyscale “thumbnail images” for each page; it is provided as an example of how one might use the `SubIFD` tag (and the library support for it)
tiff2bw | A simple program to convert a color image to grayscale
tiff2pdf | Convert TIFF images to PDF
tiff2ps | Convert TIFF images to PostScript
tiff2rgba | Convert a TIFF image to RGBA color space
tiff2cmp | Compare the contents of two TIFF files (it does not check all the directory information, but does check all the data)
tiffcp | Copy, concatenate, and convert TIFF images (e.g. switching from `Compression=5` to `Compression=1`)

tiffcrop

Provides selection of images from within one or more multi-image TIFF files, with orthogonal rotation, mirroring, cropping, and extraction of multiple sections and exporting to one or more files. It extends the functionality of tiffcp to support additional bit depths in strips and tiles and enhances the selection capabilities of tiffsplit. Bilevel images can be inverted and images may be split into segments to fit on multiple /pages/ (standard paper sizes), plus other functions described in the tiffcrop man page

tiffdither | Dither a b&w image into a bilevel image (suitable for use in creating fax files)
tiffdump | Display the verbatim contents of the TIFF directory in a file (it’s very useful for debugging bogus files that you may get from someone that claims they support TIFF)
tiffinfo | Display information about one or more TIFF files
tiffmedian | A version of Paul Heckbert’s median cut program that reads an RGB TIFF image, and creates a TIFF palette file as a result
tiffset | Set a field in a TIFF header
tiffsplit | Create one or more single-image files from a (possibly) multi-image file

Check out the manual pages for details about the above programs.