Why TIFF files are so large
TIFF is the format scanners, print shops and archives reach for because it keeps every pixel intact — either with no compression at all or with lossless compression such as LZW or ZIP. That is exactly what you want for a master copy, and exactly what makes TIFFs awkward to share. A single A4 page scanned in colour at 300 DPI is roughly 2480×3508 pixels, which is about 26 MB of raw image data. Plenty of email services cap attachments at 25 MB, and upload forms are usually far stricter.
Converting to JPG trades a small amount of invisible detail for a file that is typically a small fraction of the original size, and that opens in every browser, phone, email client and document editor — none of the major desktop browsers can display a TIFF on a web page at all.
Multi-page TIFFs: every page comes out
Document scanners, fax software and many "scan to file" office printers save a
whole document as a single TIFF with several pages inside. A JPG can only hold one
image, so this tool gives each page its own JPG, named with its page number
(contract-page-1.jpg, contract-page-2.jpg…), and
bundles them into one ZIP download. If all you need is the first page — a
cover sheet or a single-page form — set Multi-page TIFFs to
First page only.
Some TIFFs also carry small preview thumbnails next to the full-size page. Those are recognised and skipped, so you don't end up with a stray tiny JPG for every real page.
What changes in the conversion
| TIFF | JPG result | |
|---|---|---|
| Compression | None or lossless | Lossy, at the quality you choose |
| Transparency | Optional | Filled with a colour you pick (white by default) |
| Bit depth | 8 or 16 bits per channel | 8 bits per channel |
| Colour model | RGB, CMYK, greyscale, 1-bit, palette | RGB, the standard for screens |
| Metadata and layers | Can be stored | Not carried over |
Two of those rows are worth a closer look. CMYK TIFFs prepared for print are converted with a standard formula rather than their embedded colour profile, which is accurate for most images but can shift intensely saturated print colours slightly. And a Photoshop TIFF saved with layers still contains a flattened copy of the finished image — that flattened version is what becomes the JPG.
Choosing a quality setting
| Setting | When to use it |
|---|---|
| Maximum (95%) | Photos you may still crop or edit, or scans with very fine detail |
| High (85%) | The sensible default - hard to tell apart from the TIFF |
| Medium (75%) | Scanned text documents and anything headed for email or a web form |
If you need the image to stay pixel-perfect, or it has a transparent background you want to keep, choose PNG as the output instead — or use the dedicated TIFF to PNG converter.
Which TIFF files work
Uncompressed, LZW, ZIP/Deflate, PackBits, JPEG-compressed and CCITT Group 3/4 fax TIFFs are all supported, in greyscale, RGB, CMYK, palette and black-and-white, at 8 or 16 bits per channel. That covers what scanners, cameras, fax machines and Photoshop produce. A file using a rare scheme such as LZMA or JPEG 2000 gets a clear error message naming the problem, rather than a blank or black JPG that looks like it worked.
Nothing leaves your device
TIFFs are very often scanned contracts, passports, medical records and tax forms — exactly the documents you shouldn't hand to an unknown server. Here the file is decoded and re-encoded entirely inside your browser. Nothing is uploaded, there is no account, and there is no limit on how many files you convert.