TIFFCP

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: September 20, 2005
Index Return to Main Contents

NAME

tiffcp - copy (and possibly convert) a TIFF file

SYNOPSIS

tiffcp [ options ] src1.tif ... srcN.tif dst.tif

DESCRIPTION

tiffcp combines one or more files created according to the Tag Image File Format, Revision 6.0 into a single TIFF file. Because the output file may be compressed using a different algorithm than the input files, tiffcp is most often used to convert between different compression schemes.

By default, tiffcp will copy all the understood tags in a TIFF directory of an input file to the associated directory in the output file.

tiffcp can be used to reorganize the storage characteristics of data in a file, but it is explicitly intended to not alter or convert the image data content in any way.

OPTIONS

-b image: subtract the following monochrome image from all others processed. This can be used to remove a noise bias from a set of images. This bias image is typically an image of noise the camera saw with its shutter closed.
-B: Force output to be written with Big-Endian byte order. This option only has an effect when the output file is created or overwritten and not when it is appended to.
-C: Suppress the use of ``strip chopping'' when reading images that have a single strip/tile of uncompressed data.
-c: Specify the compression to use for data written to the output file: none for no compression, packbits for PackBits compression, lzw for Lempel-Ziv & Welch compression, jpeg for baseline JPEG compression, zip for Deflate compression, g3 for CCITT Group 3 (T.4) compression, and g4 for CCITT Group 4 (T.6) compression. By default tiffcp will compress data according to the value of the Compression tag found in the source file.
: The CCITT Group 3 and Group 4 compression algorithms can only be used with bilevel data.
: Group 3 compression can be specified together with several T.4-specific options: 1d for 1-dimensional encoding, 2d for 2-dimensional encoding, and fill to force each encoded scanline to be zero-filled so that the terminating EOL code lies on a byte boundary. Group 3-specific options are specified by appending a ``:''-separated list to the ``g3'' option; e.g. -c g3:2d:fill to get 2D-encoded data with byte-aligned EOL codes.
: LZW compression can be specified together with a predictor value. A predictor value of 2 causes each scanline of the output image to undergo horizontal differencing before it is encoded; a value of 1 forces each scanline to be encoded without differencing. LZW-specific options are specified by appending a ``:''-separated list to the ``lzw'' option; e.g. -c lzw:2 for LZW compression with horizontal differencing.
-f: Specify the bit fill order to use in writing output data. By default, tiffcp will create a new file with the same fill order as the original. Specifying -f lsb2msb will force data to be written with the FillOrder tag set to LSB2MSB, while -f msb2lsb will force data to be written with the FillOrder tag set to MSB2LSB.
-l: Specify the length of a tile (in pixels). tiffcp attempts to set the tile dimensions so that no more than 8 kilobytes of data appear in a tile.
-L: Force output to be written with Little-Endian byte order. This option only has an effect when the output file is created or overwritten and not when it is appended to.
-M: Suppress the use of memory-mapped files when reading images.
-p: Specify the planar configuration to use in writing image data that has one 8-bit sample per pixel. By default, tiffcp will create a new file with the same planar configuration as the original. Specifying -p contig will force data to be written with multi-sample data packed together, while -p separate will force samples to be written in separate planes.
-r: Specify the number of rows (scanlines) in each strip of data written to the output file. By default (or when value 0 is specified), tiffcp attempts to set the rows/strip that no more than 8 kilobytes of data appear in a strip. If you specify special value -1 it will results in infinite number of the rows per strip. The entire image will be the one strip in that case.
-s: Force the output file to be written with data organized in strips (rather than tiles).
-t: Force the output file to be written with data organized in tiles (rather than strips). options can be used to force the resultant image to be written as strips or tiles of data, respectively.
-w: Specify the width of a tile (in pixels). tiffcp attempts to set the tile dimensions so that no more than 8 kilobytes of data appear in a tile. tiffcp attempts to set the tile dimensions so that no more than 8 kilobytes of data appear in a tile.
-,={character}: substitute {character} for ',' in parsing image directory indices in files. This is necessary if filenames contain commas. Note that ',=' with whitespace immediately following will disable the special meaning of the ',' entirely. See examples.

EXAMPLES

The following concatenates two files and writes the result using LZW encoding:

tiffcp -c lzw a.tif b.tif result.tif

To convert a G3 1d-encoded TIFF to a single strip of G4-encoded data the following might be used:

tiffcp -c g4 -r 10000 g3.tif g4.tif

(1000 is just a number that is larger than the number of rows in the source file.)

To extract a selected set of images from a multi-image TIFF file, the file name may be immediately followed by a ',' separated list of image directory indices. The first image is always in directory 0. Thus, to copy the 1st and 3rd images of image file "album.tif" to "result.tif":

tiffcp album.tif,0,2 result.tif

Given file "CCD.tif" whose first image is a noise bias followed by images which include that bias, subtract the noise from all those images following it (while decompressing) with the command:

tiffcp -c none -b CCD.tif CCD.tif,1, result.tif

If the file above were named "CCD,X.tif", the "-,=" option would be required to correctly parse this filename with image numbers, as follows: