TIFF LZW

Action Plan: Tagged Image File Format - LZW Encoding

Last Updated 2/5/2014

Description: Tagged Image File Format, or Tiff files, are some of the most common Raster Image Formats in use. Created by the Aldus Corperation which was later aquired by Adobe, Tiff's technical specifications have been released by Adobe. It was last updated in 1992, its current version is 6.0.

Codec:  The TIFF LZW compressed encoding is sometimes used in digital library projects but has been less widely adopted than other uncompressed versions. It has been ranked lower in image quality than other tiff versions.

Software:  Tiff is supported by all major browsers and image manipulation software suites.

Long Term Preservation Plan:  Uncompressed Tiff is the prefered format for master image files at the LC. It is far and away the most popular file type present in LC's CTS system. It is heavily supported, open source, and maintains a good image quality. There is no reason at present to consider migration to other formats.

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