GIF and TIFF image formats have a rich history dating back to the 1980s. The formats set standards and are the foundation for creating the next-generation file types. Their immense capabilities and features are widely adopted in the digital space.
The article comprehensively highlights and discusses GIF vs. TIFF based on their support for animation, structure, transparency, storage, performance, compression, file size, image quality, and web browser support.
When is GIF better than TIFF?
GIF images are universally compatible and supported by all new and older web browsers, while TIFF images are only compatible with Safari but hardly supported by other vital browsers, including Firefox, Edge, Chrome, Opera, and Internet Explorer.
This makes the GIF file extension ideal for producing simple funny videos, online animations, and memes, which are extensively supported and widely adopted in most social media platforms and websites. GIFs are smaller, allowing users to alter image backgrounds by supporting alpha channel transparency.
When is TIFF better than GIF?
TIFF images are detailed, high-quality, and high-resolution, while GIF images need to be detailed and support limited color spaces, making them low-quality and low-resolution. This makes the TIFF file extension ideal for high-resolution documents and scanned images, often used by professional editors and photographers.
TIFF file format offers better color accuracy, multipage support, and info-rich image archiving, making it widely applicable in professional scanning, publishing, and printing.
TIFF versus GIF Table Comparison
| Element | TIFF | GIF |
| Transparency | Supports transparency. | Supports transparency |
| File Size | Larger files than GIF files. | Relatively smaller files than TIFF files. |
| Image Quality | High-quality images compared to GIF images. | Low-res and low-quality images than TIFF images. |
| Performance | Loads slow on websites than GIFs. | Loads faster on websites than TIFF. |
| Structure | Raster graphics: Has Image File Header, the bitmap data, and image file directory. | Raster graphics: Has header, color table blocks, screen descriptor, and a trailer block. |
| Animation | Does not support animations or lively content. | Supports animations. |
| Storage | Larger with more storage space demands than GIF. | Smaller with less storage space demands than TIFF. |
| Compression | It supports PackBits, lossy and lossless compression. | Supports lossless compression. |
| Browser Support | Limited browser support compared to GIF. | Supported by almost all web browsers than TIFF. |
Differences and similarities between GIF and TIFF images
When doing a GIF versus TIFF, the formats are discovered to be similar in transparency support and lossless compression with LZW algorithms. However, they differ in file size, image quality, structure, animation support, performance, lossy and PackBits compression, browser support, and storage demands.
Transparency
GIF and TIFF formats support transparency, but they do so differently. GIF supports simple transparency through the GIF89a format, where one color in the palette can be designated as transparent. This allows for transparent backgrounds but does not support varying levels of transparency.
On the other hand, TIFF supports alpha channel transparency, which allows for varying levels of transparency (semi-transparency). However, TIFF’s transparency features are not widely supported in web-based programs, making it less suitable for web design. As a result, alpha channel transparency in TIFF is rarely used for web applications and might be unsupported by some users' software.
File Size
GIF files are comparatively smaller compared to TIFF files. Both formats store multiple images in a single file, although a single GIF file is 2-3MB while a TIFF file is 4GB. Thus, when multiple files are stored together, TIFF files become larger than GIF files. For instance, multiple TIFF files can be 3 * 224 Tb.
Image Quality
TIFF files store high-resolution and high-quality data, including many color spaces: bi-level (white and black), LAB, Grayscale, palette (indexed), and gray RGB. They support 1—and 16-bit color depth per channel and preserve all image details during compression.
In contrast, GIF is a low-resolution and low-quality file format, supporting just 8 bits RGB per channel with a limited color space of 256 indexed colors. Its smaller pixel dimensions are ideal for low-resolution and simple web displays. Its resolution level is between 72 dpi and 90 dpi compared to TIFF’s 150 – 300 dpi.
Performance
GIF files are smaller and less detailed than TIFF files. A single TIFF file can be 4GB, while a GIF file is 2-3 MB. When multiple files are pooled together, they become relatively larger than GIF files. Lossless LZW and PackBits do not reduce TIFF file sizes significantly compared to GIF. As a result, TIFF files consume more bytes, necessitate more storage space, and load slower on websites, resulting in less optimized search engines and a dismal user experience compared to GIF files.
Structure
GIF and TIFF are raster graphics file types. Each format has different structural components, making them easy to compare. A TIFF file has a multilayer structure. All values in the TIFF file are identified using a tag denoting the data type, such as image height and width, as stored in the data format.
The length of different values assigned to a specific tag closely follows the tag and type. Each feature, namely the single-value components, is stored in arrays. The structure permits various types of information or metadata to be applied to identical properties.
On the other hand, a GIF file starts with a fixed-length header, such as GIF89a or GIF87a. The file offers the logical screen descriptor and file version with a fixed length but specifies more GIF features. The logical screen scales in pixels and checks for the presence of the Global Color Table and size description.
Animation
GIF files support animation, whereas TIFF files do not. TIFF files are used for photography, printing, desktop publishing, artwork, and GIS mapping, making them unsuitable for creating lively content or animations.
GIF supports animations through its GIF89a specifications. This feature incorporates various enhancers into the GIF image file header, allowing web browsers to show numerous GIF pictures in an entwined series or organized structure. The GIF file has images and frames, which can be seamlessly merged to produce simple animations.
Storage
GIF and TIFF files are stored and compressed in Floppy Drives, File Systems, Hard Drives, Base64 Encoding, Cloud, and Content Delivery Networks. However, the storage periods for both formats depend on the data handling procedures, storage medium used, and the conditions the files are subjected to.
TIFF files are more detailed and larger than GIF files. TIFF’s PackBits/ZIP and lossless LZW compression ensure all image data are preserved in a way that is similar to lossless LZW GIF. However, a single TIFF file can be 4GB, making TIFF files larger and necessitating more storage space than GIF files.
Compression
GIF and TIFF support lossless LZW compression. GIF images are compressed by changing color space, integrating local palettes, substituting alpha channels, spatially predicting pixels, and assimilating various pixels in a single pixel.
In contrast, TIFF uses LZW algorithms to compress file sizes by nearly 6%, though the non-photo image sizes occasionally increase by 50% when compressed. Its PackBits compression reduces TIFF file sizes by 20%, but the compression rate sometimes becomes zero for non-photographic TIFF images.
Browser Support
GIF files are widely supported by almost all web browsers and social media platforms. However, TIFF files have limited web browser support. GIF extensions are supported and compatible with legacy and modern web browsers like Chrome, Discord, IE, Opera, Safari, Vivaldi, Edge, Firefox, and Samsung Internet.
On the other hand, TIFF files are unsupported by Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Edge, Discord, Vivaldi, Opera, and Brave but only supported or compatible with Apple Safari. However, Chrome allows TIFF files to be viewed when installing additional plug-ins.
Converting GIF to TIFF or TIFF to GIF
Convertjack helps users convert GIF to TIFF while retaining all image details. Web designers and developers, among other users, like TIFF files because they support multilayers, are smaller, high-quality, and very detailed, increasing their color accuracy more than GIFs.
Similarly, Convertjack is a matchless TIFF to GIF converter, ensuring that all GIF files remain smaller, widely supported across web browsers, open-source, and with enhanced online user experience, better web responsiveness, minimal storage demand, and faster image loading times.