WEBP and TIFF play essential roles in contemporary web content, and the choices made regarding these file formats significantly impact websites' accessibility and performance.
WEB and TIFF are file formats often utilized in digital imaging or web imagery, although each format serves a specific purpose.
This article explores the similarities and differences between TIFF and WEBP's features based on their performance, structure, browser support, file size, compression, transparency, storage, image quality, and animation.
When is WEBP better than TIFF?
WEBP images are significantly smaller and load faster on websites, while TIFF images are bulky and decrease web responsiveness.
Thus, web developers/designers use WEBP to create suitable imagery that enhances website responsiveness, optimizes search engines, and increases user experience.
The WEBP file format preserves detailed image information. However, it is still smaller and requires fewer bytes than TIFF, making it a versatile imaging format for displaying and exchanging sparkling and remarkable web imagery.
When is TIFF better than WEBP?
TIFF supports various color spaces and preserves detailed image data during compression, while WEBP images are blurry under lossy compression. TIFF is suitable for storing images meant for television, film, or print media and is mostly used by designers and photographers.
The advantages of TIFF images include the ability to store high-quality images, including varying color spaces and depths; the use of lossless compression to preserve detailed image information; versatility, as it enables images to be edited and resaved without losing quality; and the support of multiple pages in a single file.
TIFF versus WEBP table comparison
Aspect/Factor | TIFF | WEBP |
Transparency | Inherent support for alpha channel transparency. | Inherent support for alpha channel transparency. |
File Size | Significantly larger (uncompressed) files than WEBP. | Tiny file sizes. |
Image Quality | Remarkable quality and detail. Preserves detailed image information, resulting in sparkling images. | High-quality images; are prone to compression artifacts, making images blurry. |
Performance | Hefty image sizes lower web load speed. | Smaller file sizes reduce image load times. |
Structure | A raster graphics file format is organized into three sections: the bitmap data, the image file directory (IFD), and the Image File Header (IFH). Each IFD has a single or multiple data structure called tags. | A raster graphics file format consisting of block prediction, VP8L or VP8 image data, and a container based on Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF). Has ASCII four-feature code for identifying chunks. |
Animation | No inherent support for animation | Supports animation or image sequences |
Storage | Text and vector information are stored as raster data, and digital masters are stored uncompressed. The storage period is indefinite in the cloud, CDN, HDD, DVD±R, CD±, file systems, and floppy drives. More bandwidth is needed. | Stores compressed metadata in RIFF; files are stored indefinitely in Base64 encoding, cloud, CDN, and file systems—less storage space is needed. |
Compression | Support lossless and lossy JPEG compression | Support lossless and lossy compression |
Browser Support | Only supported by Safari. Unsupported by Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Edge, and Discord. | Supported by Opera, Edge, Firefox, and Chrome. Unsupported by Internet Explorer |
Differences and similarities between WEBP and TIFF images
TIFF and WEBP are two versatile file formats that are identical in support of transparency, compression methods, storage mediums, and image quality.
Notable differences between these two file formats are animation support, file size, structure, web performance, and browser support.
Transparency
Both TIFF and WEBP files support alpha channel transparency. However, WEBP's support for transparency is more effective than TIFF's. WEBP supports transparency in graphics or logos with non-rectangular shapes.
WEBP supports multi-sample pixels by encrypting files with an alpha channel, which allows information to be transparent. TIFF’s alpha channels hardly work in design, and its transparent backgrounds are incompatible with most web-based programs, as with WEBP.
WEBP fully supports alpha transparency channels and is compatible with most online software. Conversely, only design programs offering full support for TIFF files support TIFF alpha channel transparency.
Alpha channel transparency is rarely used in TIFF files and might not be supported by users' software. However, TIFF allows alpha information to be added by specifying more than three samples per pixel.
TIFF and WEBP formats support metadata and color profiles dictating transparent image backgrounds.
File Size
TIFF files are larger than WEBP files. TIFF was developed to store scanned images or photos, while WEBP was meant to create lighter web images. Thus, TIFF is a rather heavy format because its files are larger than other image formats, including WEBP.
TIFF files are larger because of the metadata included and because most TIFF images are uncompressed or use lossless or lossy algorithms. This still leaves their files relatively larger after compression compared to WEBP.
Both file formats support and store rich metadata, including bit depth and color range. However, WEBP VP8 or VP8L compression algorithms significantly reduce their file size compared to TIFF’s lossless LZW and PackBits/ZIP compression.
Thus, unlike WEBP files, a single TIFF file may have multiple images used to represent multipage documents, making it heavier.
Image Quality
Both TIFF and WEBP offer high-resolution and high-quality images. However, TIFF has the most significant visual accuracy after compression compared to WEBP. Lossy WEBP is more prone to compression artifacts than lossy TIFF.
The WEBP supports a bit depth of 24-bit RGB color with an 8-bit alpha channel. TIFF’s 32 bits per color channel produces more vibrant and high-quality images than WEBP images.
Nevertheless, WEBP and TIFF preserve and store detailed image information during lossless compression, giving them richer color depths and extensive resolution levels. Both file formats offer high resolution and larger pixel dimensions, signifying their high-quality images.
Performance
TIFF and WEBP images are versatile file formats universally compatible with various editing and resizing programs and operating systems. However, lossless TIFF images are heavier than WEBP and unsuitable for web use.
WEBP files consume fewer bytes because of their smaller bandwidths than the larger TIFF files. Thus, TIFF's file size decreases websites' performance compared to the high-web responsive WEBP files, which also offer an impressive user experience.
Structure
TIFF supports a multilayer structure. It has bitmap data, the image file directory (IFD), and the Image File Header (IFH). Each IFD has a single or multiple data structures called tags. The TIFF image is identified using a tag denoting the type of data it contains, namely image width or height.
The WEBP file format structure comprises block prediction. The values from three blocks predict each block from the left and above.
Conversely, the length of various values assigned to a particular tag closely follows the TIFF's tag and type. This implies that each property, including the single-value properties, is stored in arrays.
WEBP’s block decoding follows a raster scan sequence: top to bottom and left to right. The four basic block prediction modes are TrueMotion, DC, vertical and horizontal.
WEBP has RIFF and SCII four-feature code for identifying chunks and uses VP8 or VP8L encoding. Both TIFF and WEBP compare as they are both raster graphics formats.
Animation
WEBP supports animation, while TIFF does not. However, TIFF supports multiple pages, ideal for storing distinct frames for animation sequences. TIFF is applicable in specific animation software to produce high-quality animated content.
WEBP file format combines efficient lossless and lossy compression, increasing its support for transparency and making it ideal for animated images and graphics. It surpasses the precincts of static pictures and boasts vigorous support for animations.
Storage
TIFF stores text and vector information as raster data, while WEBP stores joint images. WEBP and TIFF metadata are stored in compressed or uncompressed formats, although TIFF images require more storage space than WEBP files.
Lossless compressed TIFF data are stored for service use masters, while digital masters are stored uncompressed. Lossless WEBP are stored in uncompressed format. WEBP and TIFF images do not degrade over time and can be stored indefinitely.
Both file formats use identical storage mediums such as CDN, HDD, cloud, file systems, and floppy drives. TIFF additionally uses DVD±R and CD± while WEBP uses Base64 encoding.
Compression
TIFF and WEBP use lossless and lossy compression techniques. TIFF supports lossless LZW and PackBits/ZIP compression and lossy JPEG compression, but WEBP uses advanced prediction algorithms and VP8L entropy encoding.
Most TIFF files often remain uncompressed, while WEBP effectively reduces file sizes. During LZW lossless compression, TIFF file sizes decrease by about 6%. At times, the file size of a non-photo TIFF image increases by 50% during lossless LZW compression.
WEBP uses entropy coding, which is familiar to VP8 and VP8L key frame encoding, to break the frame into fragments, reconstruct the image, and transform it into desirable sizes and quality. Lossless WEBP is more effective than lossless TIFF.
Lossless TIFF generates significantly larger, high-quality images than small, lossless WEBP images. In both cases, lossy compression removes unnecessary or duplicate image data and then compresses the remaining components of the original file into smaller files.
Browser Support
WEBP is among the next-generation file formats, while TIFF has existed for almost four decades. Despite having lived longer than WEBP, WEBP is widely supported by most top web browsers than TIFF.
TIFF is only supported by Safari, while WEBP enjoys universal support from Microsoft Edge, Opera, Google Chrome, Apple's Safari, and Mozilla Firefox. Internet Explorer does not support both file formats.
Besides, TIFF is unsupported or incompatible with Microsoft Edge, Mozilla, Chrome, Discord, Vivaldi, and Opera, among other new and older web browsers.
TIFF’s limited browser support and compatibility issues make storing and sharing images more difficult than WEBP.
Conclusion
While both file formats are used in web imaging, WEPB files are significantly smaller and of high quality, while TIFF files are comparatively larger but very high quality.
Thus, WEBP files are the best choice for creating web imagery because they improve search engine optimization and user experience more than TIFF.
On the other hand, TIFF supports various color spaces and preserves detailed image data during compression better than WEBP, making it the best option for storing images meant for television, film, or print media.