Does TIFF offer higher image quality than PNG, and when would converting lose quality?
Asked 7/10/2011
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I’m trying to understand why TIFF is often recommended over PNG for storing high-resolution photos. PNG uses lossless compression, is widely viewable, and supports transparency, so I’m confused when people say TIFF has “higher quality.”
If I save a TIFF as PNG, am I actually losing image quality? If so, under what circumstances? I’m especially interested in practical differences like bit depth, metadata, color support, and editing workflow.
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
15y ago
2 Answers
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You explicitly mentioned PNG-24 - that has eight bits per channel, whereas a TIFF file can have 16. That would be one reason the quality could be higher, from a RAW conversion especially but also if you are doing a lot of editing.
The PNG standard also supports 16-bits per channel (PNG-48) but I don't know how many applications support that, whereas pretty much anything that can read TIFF is going to be able to read a 16-bit TIFF file.
TIFF can also store layers in it, which is not a quality issue so much as a flexibility thing. PNG is really meant to hold an image, not a layered set (although APNG can hold a set, it's really not for the same purpose).
One additional bit of practical information is that TIFF can store many kinds of Photoshop layers, I have used it for images which had a number of adjustment layers applied. That is not possible with PNG, you would have to flatten the whole image.
Originally by user1192. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user1192
15y ago
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TIFF is not automatically higher quality than PNG. Both formats can be lossless, so converting a TIFF to PNG does not inherently reduce quality.
The main caveat is bit depth: PNG-24 is 8 bits per channel, while TIFF is often used at 16 bits per channel. If you convert a 16-bit TIFF to PNG-24, you do lose tonal precision. If the source is already 8-bit, then saving to PNG-24 should not reduce image quality.
In practice, TIFF is often preferred not because it is always “better quality,” but because it is more flexible for photography workflows. TIFF commonly has better support for 16-bit files, metadata such as EXIF/IPTC, CMYK, and some layered editing data in applications like Photoshop. PNG is more web-oriented: excellent for single images, lossless delivery, and transparency, but less commonly used for archival/editing workflows.
So: TIFF is not magically better. The quality difference usually comes from using a lower-bit PNG version, or from TIFF’s broader support for photo-editing and print-related features rather than from compression itself.
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