# TIFF Tools Overview

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This software distribution comes with a small collection of programs for converting non-TIFF format images to TIFF and for manipulating and interogating the contents of TIFF images. Several of these tools are useful in their own right. Many of them however are more intended to serve as programming examples for using the TIFF library.

### Device-dependent Programs

There are two device-dependent programs that serve as simple examples for writing programs to display and save TIFF images.

`tiffgt` | Display the contents of one or more TIFF images on a Silicon Graphics system using the Silicon Graphics IRIS GL. The software makes extensive use of the `TIFFRGBAImage` facilities described elsewhere.
`tiffsv` | A program to save all or part of a screen dump on a Silicon Graphics system. As for `tiffgt` this code, while written to use the IRIS GL, can be easily tailored to other devices.

### Device-independent Programs

The remaining programs should be device-independent:

`tiffinfo` | Display information about one or more TIFF files.
`tiffdump` | Display the verbatim contents of the TIFF directory in a file (it's very useful for debugging bogus files that you may get from someone that claims they support TIFF)
`tiffcp` | Copy, concatenate, and convert TIFF images (e.g. switching from Compression=5 to Compression=1)
`tiff2ps` | Convert TIFF images to PostScript
`tiffcmp` | Compare the contents of two TIFF files (it does not check all the directory information, but does check all the data)
`tiff2bw` | A simple program to convert a color image to grayscale
`ras2tiff` | A quick hack that converts Sun rasterfile format images to TIFF -- it's less than complete
`rgb2ycbcr` | Convert an RGB, grayscale, or bilevel TIFF image to a YCbCr TIFF image; it's mainly provided for testing
`gif2tiff` | A quick hack that converts GIF 87a format images to TIFF
`ppm2tiff` | A quick hack that converts PPM format images to TIFF
`fax2tiff` | Convert raw Group 3 or Group 4 facsimile data to TIFF
`pal2rgb` | Convert a Palette-style image to a full color RGB image by applying the colormap
`tiffdither` | Dither a b&w image into a bilevel image (suitable for use in creating fax files)
`tiffsplit` | Create one or more single-image files from a (possibly) multi-image file
`fax2ps` | Convert a Group 3- or Group 4- compressed TIFF to PostScript that is significantly more compressed than is generated by `tiff2ps` (unless `tiff2ps` writes PS Level II)
`thumbnail` | Copy a bilevel TIFF to one that includes 8-bit greyscale "thumbnail images" for each page; it is provided as an example of how one might use the `SubIFD` tag (and the library support for it)
`tiffmedian` | A version of Paul Heckbert's median cut program that reads an RGB TIFF image, and creates a TIFF palette file as a result; it's useful for converting full-color RGB images to 8-bit color for your friends that have cheapo 8-bit framebuffers.
`sgi2tiff` | A program to convert SGI image files to TIFF. This program is only useful on SGI machines as it uses `-limage`.

Check out the manual pages for details about the above programs.