Opening .tif files on my Mac

[abc 123]

Hi all,

Sorry if this is a silly question but I've searched the forums and the internet on this and haven't yet been able to solve my problem.

I received an e-mail containing a .tif file which my Mac can't open.
In several threads I see that Preview should be able to open this but all I get is the message "Couldn’t open the file. It may be corrupt or a file format that Preview doesn’t recognize."

How do I configure Preview to recognize and open this file?
I do trust the original sender of the .tif files. They've tried to send me some on several occasions and I've never been able to open them. Could it be that they are being corrupted in the e-mail process (no idea what program they're using on their side)?

FYI my version of Preview is 3.0.9 running on Mac OS X 10.4.11

Thanks for your help

 

[edesignuk]

You could try opening it with Xee.

 

[abc 123]

Thanks for your input edesignuk but...no joy!

I downloaded Xee and when it came to opening the file it just said "couldn't diplay file".
The same file apparently opens without a problem if I forward it on via e-mail to a PC user so I guess the file wasn't corrupted from the start by the original e-mail which sent it to me.

 

[BobZune]

Does it open when you drop it into a browser window? There are some differences between PC and Mac TIF files - perhaps he is using an old or not very sophisticated program to create the files. Perhaps you can ask for a JPG or other format?

 

[Jethryn Freyman]

It's probably corrupt. Can you Quick Look it?

 

[abc 123]

Hi BobZune,

I tried opening the file in a browser window and got nothing.It could be that the original sender is using an unsophisticated programme but I don't really know.
I forwarded the e-mail to a friend who uses a PC at work and he had no problem opening the file using Windows Imaging. So it doesn't seem to be corrupted.

For now I have found a solution but hardly something satisfactory for future use.
Am I to understand that if the original Windows user uses a basic programme which generates .tif files, Preview just can't open them?

Thanks for your input,

abc

 

[abc 123]

Hi Jethryn,

Sorry my version of panther doesn't have Quick Look. As I said to BobZune, when I forwarded the file to a friend using a PC it opened without problem using a Windows programme. So I conclude that te original doesn't seem corrupted.

abc

 

[Blue Velvet]

Perhaps if you hosted one of the files somewhere for download and then linked to it so we could try it for ourselves, perhaps we could offer more help.

It could be a number of things. I'm not sure whether Preview is OK with 16 bit files, CMYK files, bitmapped TIFFs, layered TIFFs, LaB files or even LZW ones just to name a few of the TIF flavours you run into from time to time.

If you're running Preview on Panther, that might explain it, as it's getting on in age now. You could also try The Gimp to see if that works.