The uncompressed (or losslessly compressed) format professional printing, scanning, and archiving still standardize on.
TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) is a raster image format built in the 1980s for professional imaging pipelines where quality matters more than file size. It can store images uncompressed, so nothing is discarded the way JPEG discards detail, or with lossless compression that shrinks the file without touching a single pixel, and it supports layers, multiple pages, and high bit depths that consumer formats generally do not. That combination is why TIFF remains the default in document scanning, prepress and print production, and long-term archiving at libraries and museums, even though it is far too large for everyday sharing. A single-page TIFF scan can run tens of megabytes at print resolution, which is fine for a print shop's workflow but impractical for email, messaging, or a web upload. Anyone who receives a TIFF file from a scanner, a print vendor, or an archive typically wants it back as a JPEG or PNG small enough to actually send, unless the file is headed to another professional print or preservation workflow that expects TIFF specifically.
iPhone, iPad, and Mac open TIFF natively in Photos and Preview. Windows Photos and most photo editors support it too. Some web browsers will not display a TIFF inline, and many messaging apps and upload forms reject it outright due to its size.
TIFF's file sizes make it impractical to email, message, or upload most places, even though print shops and archives rely on it for exactly that lack of compression. Converting to JPEG or PNG on-device shrinks a scan or print file down to something that is actually shareable.
Filemorph can convert TIFF to JPG on-device — a fraction of the file size for sharing, while TIFF stays reserved for print and archival work.
Filemorph converts .tiff files entirely on-device on iPhone, iPad and Mac — no upload, no account, and it works in Airplane Mode.
Relevant operations in Filemorph:
Scanners and print shops default to TIFF because it can store a page uncompressed or losslessly compressed, preserving every detail for professional printing or archiving. That same lack of compression is what makes the file too large for everyday sharing.
JPEG uses lossy compression, so yes, some detail is discarded — but a TIFF scanned or exported at print resolution usually has far more detail than a screen or a typical print run needs, so the loss is rarely visible outside of pixel-level inspection.
Yes. Filemorph converts TIFF files entirely on the iPhone or iPad, which matters for scanned documents that may contain personal or financial information — nothing is sent to a server, and the conversion works offline.