Ubuntu Manpage: tiffcp - copy (and possibly convert) a TIFF file

Provided by: libtiff-tools_4.7.0-3ubuntu1_amd64

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

-a Append to an existing output file instead of overwriting it.

-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: -c none for no compression, -c
packbits for PackBits compression, -c lzw for Lempel-Ziv & Welch compression, -c zip for Deflate
compression, -c lzma for LZMA2 compression, -c jpeg for baseline JPEG compression, -c g3 for CCITT
Group 3 (T.4) compression, -c g4 for CCITT Group 4 (T.6) compression, or -c sgilog for SGILOG
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, Deflate and LZMA2 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. A value 3 is for
floating point predictor which you can use if the encoded data are in floating point format.
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.

Deflate and LZMA2 encoders support various compression levels (or encoder presets) set as
character p and a preset number. p1 is the fastest one with the worst compression ratio and p9 is
the slowest but with the best possible ratio; e.g. -c zip:3:p9 for Deflate encoding with maximum
compression level and floating point predictor.

For the Deflate codec, and in a libtiff build with libdeflate enabled, p12 is actually the maximum
level.

For the Deflate codec, and in a libtiff build with libdeflate enabled, s0 can be used to require
zlib to be used, and s1 for libdeflate (defaults to libdeflate when it is available).

-f fillorder
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.

-i Ignore non-fatal read errors and continue processing of the input file.

-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.

-o offset
Set initial directory offset.

-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). :program::tiffcp attempts to set the tile dimensions so
that no more than 8 kilobytes of data appear in a tile.

-x Force the output file to be written with PAGENUMBER value in sequence.

-8 Write BigTIFF instead of classic TIFF format.

-,= 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.

-m size
Set maximum memory allocation size (in MiB). The default is 256MiB. Set to 0 to disable the
limit.

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

       A  trailing  comma  denotes remaining images in sequence.  The following command will copy all image with
       except the first one:

          tiffcp album.tif,1, 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:

          tiffcp -c none -,=% -b CCD,X.tif CCD,X%1%.tif result.tif

AUTHOR

       LibTIFF contributors

COPYRIGHT

       1988-2022, LibTIFF contributors

4.7                                               Apr 30, 2025                                         TIFFCP(1)