.TIF Files

[P.M.B]

Hi,

So my client recently made a bunch of .tif files available to me for some new something or other.

When I bring them into AE they do have alpha channels but when I bring them into Photoshop

to convert them to a 1000% smaller .png the transparency is not there.

What's even weirder to me is that the images do have alpha channels but they're not the same

as they are in AE,

When I bring the images into AE I can view the alpha channel & there is transparency.

When I bring the same image into PS there is an alpha channel but it does not match the image

and there is no transparency.

I was given about 50 images in total and in photoshop they all have the exact same alpha channel even though the images are all different.

In AE every image has its own unique alpha channel that matches the image.

What the heck is going on?

Thanks,

Paul

[P.M.B]

Mike_Abbott  wrote

Yes - the huge sizes are 'normal'. Tiff is uncompressed, png is compressed - but lossless compression, so you don't loose anything when you open it.

Which explains why they take longer to open?

[Mike_Abbott]

Correct. You'll also find rendering an image sequence to PNG is slower than to TIFF - because the PNG's need to be compressed.

[P.M.B]

This is great.  So a good time to go with TIFF would be when rendering a large image sequence where the faster writing and subsequent reading will add up to a significant time saving?  

And what about TGA?   When I was learning Maya we always rendered to TGA sequences.   Apparently these formats appeared around the same time and are very similar.  Wikipedia says TGA has better 'true color' capabiities?  

Are TGA and TIFF pretty much interchangeable?

[Mike_Abbott]

It would certainly be worth testing - you'd be dealing with much bigger file sizes of course.

Good question on the targa files. I think you're right about targa and tiff arriving around the same time.

'Back in the day' tiff was used in the print industry, targa just in the TV world. Desktop video as we know it know didn't exist of course. That TV/video v print background became ingrained - so that's probably why you would have been directed to render targa when learning Maya. Tiff developed into a much more flexible format - layers, alpha, various possible compression options built in etc. while Targa remained a fairly basic - but perfectly good quality format. You can reneder out Targa from AE, but I've not done so in many years.

My guess is that the 'better true colour' capability comment is a historical one. When they were introduced I think targa was 'full colour' eg 8 bits per channel, while tiff was not. Tiff rapidly caught up. There would be no difference in quality - so yes, pretty much interchangable in that respect.

[Szalam]

Targa. Now there's a name I haven't heard in a very long time...

[P.M.B]

I converted one of the TIFFs to a TARGA...They save at exactly the same size.

[P.M.B]

BTW anyone who comments on this thread will have their comment marked as helpful.  It's like the helpful-thread-easter-egg-Jay-Feg.

[Mike_Abbott]

Gutter-Fish  wrote

I converted one of the TIFFs to a TARGA...They save at exactly the same size.

Yes - as expected. They are holding the RGB(A) data in exactly the same way (assuming you've not used any of the available compression options). They should also render out at the same speed. I'm just not too sure about how much support Targa has in other editors. Premiere will import them - but I think Davinci Resolve won't.

Curiosity got the better of me and I did a quick test render of a very simple motion graphics piece - just 12 seconds:

TIFF sequence (uncompressed) : 24 seconds render time, file size: 443 MB

PNG sequence : 48 seconds render time, file size 137 MB

Take your pick : )

This was a very simple project - just a handful of stills, one video layer, and a few expressions - so the difference is maximised here. If the project the was taking a minute a frame to render the extra time to compress to PNG would add a very minor amount of time and probably be insignificant.

[P.M.B]

For me personally the speed difference alone wouldn't outweigh the space it takes to store it.

BTW I've earned 100 points in the least 24 hours  LOL.  Well, maybe "earned" isn't the right word.

[Mike_Abbott]

Perhaps this would be an appropriate point to abandon ship and let the infamous TIF thread die a natural death... 

[Stan Jones]

Yeh; I marked this last one helpful! lol. Ah, for the old days of camaraderie in the Video Lounge.