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From: olsen@hpfcdq.HP.COM (John Olsen)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: Gif to IFF
Message-ID: <390039@hpfcdq.HP.COM>
Date: 13 Oct 89 14:43:58 GMT
References: <1198@clinet.FI>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard - Fort Collins, CO
Lines: 28

toweri@clinet.FI (Jukka Lindgren) writes:
>	Can someone tell, in laymans terms, what is actually the difference
>between Gif, IFF and TIFF -fileformats? Most important to me is to know,
>if it's possible to create an IFF -file from TIFF -file (24 or 36 bits).
>Or, better still: to create a HAM -image from TIFF -image...

GIF: Compu$erve picture format with up to 256 colors.  It likes to use a
1.2 aspect ratio if I remember right.  Lots of computers now have GIF
viewing programs, but many have to drop extra colors if the computer can't
do 256 onscreen at once.

IFF: File format developed by Electronic Arts for the Commodore Amiga, and
also used on other systems.  It can be used for pictures (ILBM=interleaved
bit map), sounds, text, and a few other things.  Pictures can contain things
like color tables, color cycle ranges (colormap animation), all using 
various types of compression.

TIFF: Not a clue as to it's internals. :^(  Apparently used by NeXT and
some scanners.

Fbm lists TIFF as "not yet supported" in the version I have (7 March 1989),
but the fbm package has a file tifftopbm.  That would take it to monochrome,
however. There's also a pbm program called ppmtoillbm which can write HAM 
IFF files.  The pbm package was posted recently to comp.sources or some 
such group.

John Olsen
olsen@hpfcdq.HP.COM