Convert TIFF to PNG
TIFF comes from scanning and print, and it is less a format than a family of them — a container that can hold almost any kind of image data, which is exactly why no browser will open one. PNG is the lossless format browsers do read, so this conversion loses no image quality at all. What it can lose is everything around the image.
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What it does
- Lossless in and lossless out — no quality change
- Handles LZW, Deflate, PackBits and uncompressed TIFFs
- CMYK converted to RGB, which shifts some colors
- Multi-page TIFFs return the first page only
How to use TIFF to PNG
- 1
Add the TIFF
Scans, faxes, files from a print workflow, or anything a colleague sent with a .tif or .tiff extension. Both spellings are the same format; the four-letter version is a Windows-era convention that stuck.
- 2
Convert
The file is decoded on our server. No browser can read TIFF — this is not a gap that will close, since browser vendors have never had a reason to support a print format.
- 3
Check color if the file came from print
A TIFF prepared for printing is often CMYK, and PNG only stores RGB. The conversion translates it, but saturated colors can shift noticeably. If the file is a press asset, compare before you use the result.
How it works
The TIFF is decoded on our server using libtiff, which is the reference implementation and the only practical way to handle the format's variety. The decoded pixels are then written as PNG with its standard Deflate compression.
Because both formats store exact pixel values, this is a genuine lossless conversion: the PNG is a bit-for-bit faithful reproduction of the image the TIFF described. That is unusual on this site, where most conversions involve a trade-off worth explaining. Here the image is safe and only its surroundings are at risk.
Why TIFF is so awkward
TIFF was designed in 1986 for desktop scanners, and it was designed to be extensible. That decision is why it survived and why nothing outside professional imaging supports it.
A TIFF file is a set of tags describing what follows. Those tags can specify LZW compression, or Deflate, or PackBits, or JPEG, or CCITT Group 4 fax encoding, or no compression at all. The data can be RGB, CMYK, grayscale, indexed color, or raw sensor data. It can be 8, 16 or 32 bits per channel. It can be stored in strips or in tiles. It can hold one image or hundreds.
Every one of those combinations is a valid TIFF. Supporting "TIFF" means supporting all of them, which is why the format lives on in scanning, archival and print — where that flexibility is the point — and nowhere else.
What does not survive
Extra pages. The most common loss, and the one worth checking before you convert a scanned document.
CMYK color. Translated to RGB with the shift described above.
Bit depth above 8 bits. A 16-bit-per-channel scan holds far more tonal information than a screen can show, which matters when editing. PNG does support 16-bit, but most software that opens it will not use the extra depth, so treat the PNG as a viewing copy rather than an editing master.
Layers and paths. Some TIFFs written by image editors carry layers, clipping paths and alpha masks in private tags. Those are flattened.
Embedded color profiles. Carried where possible, but a profile is what makes color reproducible — another reason to keep the original if the file is going to press.
When to keep the TIFF
Keep it whenever it is a master copy: an archival scan, a photograph being edited, or anything destined for print. TIFF's flexibility exists precisely for those uses, and the PNG you get here is a derivative.
Convert when you need to look at it, put it on a web page, attach it somewhere that rejects TIFF, or hand it to software that does not read the format. For all of those, PNG is the right target and costs you nothing in image quality.
Examples
A 300 dpi document scan
Smaller, and pixel-for-pixel identical. Both formats are lossless, so nothing was discarded — PNG's compression is simply better suited to a page of black text on white than LZW is.
A multi-page scanned document
This is the case that surprises people. A TIFF can hold an entire document as one file, and PNG holds exactly one image, so eleven pages have nowhere to go. For a multi-page scan, converting to PDF keeps the document together and is almost always what was actually wanted.
Frequently asked questions
Why will my browser not open a TIFF?
Because TIFF is not one format. It is a container with dozens of possible compression schemes, color models, bit depths and layouts, several of them proprietary, and supporting it means supporting all of them. Browsers were built for the web, where TIFF was never used, so no engine has ever implemented it and none is likely to.
Does converting lose quality?
No. Both TIFF and PNG are lossless, so every pixel arrives unchanged and the output is an exact reproduction of the input image. This is one of the few conversions on this site with no quality trade at all — the only things that can be lost are structural, like extra pages or embedded metadata.
My colors look different. What happened?
The TIFF was almost certainly CMYK, the four-ink model used for printing, and PNG can only store RGB. The conversion translates between them, but the two describe different ranges of color: deep cyans and rich blacks in particular have no exact RGB equivalent and are approximated. For press work, keep the CMYK original as the master.
How do I convert all the pages of a multi-page TIFF?
Convert it to PDF instead. PDF is a multi-page format, so the document stays in one file with its page order intact, which is nearly always what someone converting a scanned report actually needs. Use PNG only when the TIFF genuinely holds a single image.
Further reading
- A Lossless Conversion Changed Every Pixel in the ImageConvert a 16-bit PNG to lossless WebP, convert it back, and compare the two files pixel by pixel. Every single pixel is different. Nothing malfunctioned and the encoder did exactly what it advertises — because the word lossless makes a narrower promise than almost everybody assumes it does.
- TIFF Was Larger Than PNG on Every Image, Including With LZWTIFF has a reputation as the professional's lossless format — the one you archive in, the one print shops ask for. PNG is treated as the web's lightweight cousin. On file size that reputation is backwards, and the gap is not small. Here is the comparison on four different kinds of image, with both common TIFF compression schemes.
- Which of These Tools Run in Your BrowserThis post used to say almost every tool here ran in your browser. That stopped being true in August 2026, so it has been rewritten rather than quietly left up. Some tools still run entirely on your machine, many now run on our server, and the useful part is that you never have to take our word for which — you can check any of them yourself in ten seconds.