How do I open an unsupported Tiff?

[Artifex1975]

Hello there,

  I have a folder of tiffs that were recovered from an sd card out of a Canon T3i.  The only recovery software that worked saved them as Tiff files.  I can view the thumbnail, I can even view the full res version in Windows Picture Viewer, but the files cannot be opened by Lightroom, Photoshop, Infranview or Gimp.  The all spit out a message to the tune of "unsupported tiff format". 

  I'd be happy to just get these things into jpeg format so that I can edit them, this mess is turning into a nightmare.  Please, please give me some wisdom.  I'm at a loss.

[JJMack]

Conroy why are your reacting like you are ?  That is one answer I would like to know? For I can not imagine an answer.

[conroy]

JJMack wrote:

Conroy why are your reacting like you are ?

Are you asking about my reaction to your irritating posts in which you either do misinterpret, or pretend to misinterpret, almost everything written by me?

For I can not imagine an answer.

That I do believe. You have repeatedly demonstrated an inability to consider the situation or thoughts of anyone other than yourself.

[JJMack]

Yes we communicate very differently understand differently I feel we both know quite a bit about Photoshop I never meen to offend.  My witting skills are piss poor I admit that.  The only reason I append in these forums is to try to help.  You know there may be other out there with brains wired like mine that may understand what I write like the way I do.

Do yourself a favor relax what you write reflex will on you, your good.  I did not realized you answer was not marked correct any more. Chris said he would fix that. 

I'm sorry I don't understand your written word the way you do.  Its the way my brain works.  I'll say again I flunked every English course I ever had to take.  There are others here that their native language is not English. For me English my native language is hard. Pleas try to understand this.  I see and understand thing differently then you. We are not part of a Borg collective. I mean no disrespect to anyone here. I also will not always agree with everything written here.

I also read you append incorrectly. I thought it stated if  ACR preferences were set to open Tiff file it would open from the Bridge.   You wrote it didn't.t from Photoshop and Illustrator. Sorry...

[Lundberg02]

Has the all clear sounded yet?

[sarahpleis]

Oh my god, I am having this same problem with a tif and I am amazed how this conversation devolved into personal BS. Come on, let's stick to the problem at hand.

[Chris Cox]

Conroy - I don't know, and it seems to have been cleaned up.

I suspect one of the other admins marked it.

[conroy]

Chris, I apologise for claiming that you had made the changes to the marking yourself.

The thing that annoys me is not that my answer is not marked correct. The annoyance is that someone interfered with the forum marking immediately after your post was made.

Your post is still marked correct as far as I see, by the way.

[Chris Cox]

OK, fixed it myself.

[conroy]

Thank you!

[oceanic_vis16]

Hello I need your help.

Hello there,

  I have a bunch of tiffs that were recovered from an sd card out of a Canon T3i. I can view the thumbnail, but I cant open it in any of the software . It says corrupted or unsupported format   I'd be happy to just get these things into jpeg format so that I can get them back. From previous discussion I found that you recommended Camera raw to open these images, could you pls send me the link for that and how do I convert them to JPEG .

It would be great .

Thanks

[Guest]

Hi Guys

Slightly old tread but anyway;

     I just had the same problem, but with "tif's" created by an olympus microscope.

Nothing on the mac would open them, not preview, iPhoto or photoshop (which said "Could not complete your request because the TIFF file uses an unsupported compression method.").

Finally I tried GIMP and it opened them, although it did raise heap of errors as to why the file was not what it had expected.

It did let me save them out and now they are open in Photoshop.

Hope it helps Rory

[Mylenium]

I agree with Silkrooster. They could be JPEGs, after all. If Windows can show them, they cannot be that exotic. That being so, as a last resort you can always open them in Paint and save them to something else, if simply renaimg them to JPEG doesn't work.

Mylenium

[JJMack]

Since cameras do not write tiff format image files. Try renaming the recovered file from *.tif to *.jpg. So now you have three thar agree it may be that just the ext is wrong.

[JJMack]

Artifex1975 wrote:

  I have a folder of tiffs that were recovered from an sd card out of a Canon T3i.  The only recovery software that worked saved them as Tiff files.

I think the mystery you need to solve is how did the sd card become corrupt and require you to use a recovery software to recover files on it in the first place.

Recovery software is a program somewhat like a check disk program with a different end result in mind.  The both read the data on the media and reconcile the data structures on the media.  Check disk recovers lost space no longer accounted for in the FAT and marks the areas free. It also checkes the file structures to make sure files are not cross linked and fixing errors the best it can and creates file or parts of files the seem to exist without directory entry.  Check disk can also do more extensive recovery checks and check for bad area and reassign alternate area.

Recovery programs reads the media an book keep the data structures with a different end in mind.  It wants to rebuild the files it finds intact. It creates directory entries for file it finds intact and markes their data areas as allocated in the FAT.   Recovery programs do not trans-code or change files data formats. They just piece file back together s far as I know. 

Your Cannon T3i writes RAW and Jpeg files.  The recovered file you posted is 19MB with metadata and Chris Cox has identified its data format as an old obsolete Tiff file format.  This leads me to think that you at one point had the SD card mounted on you computer and used the files on the SD card with a program that converted the Jpeg and RAW files on the SD card to Tiff files. Deleted the Jpeg and RAW files on the SD card and wrote the Tiff files onto the SD card and in the process the SD card format was messed up.

I could be very wrong but it the only thing my  brain can think up.

[qrwteydfvdvcgggfffff]

I had a similar problem. Several years ago I scanned a load of documents and saved them as .TIF files. I now have WIndows 7 and Office 2010 and NOTHING will open those files.
I have scoured the net and tried EVERYTHING and just one thing worked, read on:
The problem is not Photoshop.
The problem is that Windows 7 does not now suport TIFF format and previous versions of it a) did and b) tended to employ the Microsoft Document Imaging (MDI) to save tiff files - no matter what application you thought you were actually in at the time.
Now, MDI has several compression options for TIF format and the default was some weird Microsoft custom variation. So, any .TIF files you saved were saved in cant-ever-read-again-if-Microsoft-change-their-minds format.
Microsoft then proceded to change its mind.
In MDI, the compression options are in TOOLS/OPTIONS, compression-tab. In a logical, just and sane world, the "Perform lossless compression" box would ALWAYS be ticked - this saves things in "normal" tif format so other things can read it.
However, we aren't living in a world like that, we are living in a world substantially run by Microsoft. MDI was discontinued and MIcrosoft ceased support for the .TIF format, leaving people like us high and dry - thanks Microsoft !
So,What I did was:
Get my old Office 2003 installation disc and installed ONLY the MDI software (X-out everything else in the installation list).
Yes it will sit alongside Office 2010 Ok.
Start it up and do TOOLS/OPTIONS, compression-tab and tick "Perform lossless compression". Click Ok etc. to close the dialog.
Do FILE/IMPORT to pick up a .TIF file. (I found that it was faster to paste the path in rather than use the file-open dialog navigation).
Do FILE/SAVE AS and choose type .mdi (Click OPTIONS and check the quality options etc.). Click OK to save
Do FILE/SAVE AS again and this time choose type .tif. CLick OK to save.
You should now be abke to read the .tif file in things like Photoshop (I found that Camera Raw auto started to load it. I then saved it as type .jpg).
Hope this helps.

[Chris Cox]

Oh, ouch - the Microsoft Document Imaging was the old Wang Imaging library, which butchered TIFF files and largely ignored the standard.

Yeah, opening it in MDI and resaving is probably your only hope.

[qrwteydfvdvcgggfffff]

One thing I forgot to say:

For the love of G*D UNINSTALL MDI after you have finished updating your tif disasters.

Why? Because Microsoft will assume that you have re-started your love affair with Office 2003 and download all 27 million Office 2003 updates to your computer. Your registry will go down like the Titanic and you will begin believing that losing all your commercially vital scanned documents was quite acceptable by comparison after all.

[vladimirm32362769]

Adobe lightroom worked for me

[KatieSc0tt]

THANK YOU!!!  I tried all the other things but your solution worked for me!!!

I imported the faulty tiff into Lightroom and I'm good!!

Yay!!  THANK YOU!!

[KatieSc0tt]

Funny thing - Photoshop still hates it.  I can export it from Lightroom - so I'm good - THANK YOU!!

BTW - This is NOT an old tiff.