Why no LZW TIFF??

[Danks]

I have hundreds of 4000 dpi scans saved as LZW compressed TIFF files. The compression generally shrinks a file from 55MB down to 35MB or so . . . very worthwhile and, since it is a lossless scheme, I see no reason why a person would choose NOT to LZW compress their TIFF files.

Why have you chosen to not support what I consider to be the most useful of all the formats for archival purposes?

[MichaelT]

Danks,

Good question.

I understand the advantages of LZW TIFF. The problem is that the technology is licensed with a heavy fee by Unisys. If all goes as planned, we will pay the fee and be able to create images from LZW and GIF, but we are not prepared to make that investment right now. So this is planned for the future, with no promises.

I understand your frustration, but we have to monitor our business plan carefully. We look forward to adding this feature (the sooner the better) if at all possible, but we will need some time. So far so good ;>)

[Danks]

Thank you for the reply, Michael.

This leaves me at bit "at sea" as it were.

Until today I suppose I thought EVERYBODY used LZW TIFF format for archiving simply because the utility is incorporated into Photoshop and causes no problems with my viewer of choice, LView PRO.

Now I see that is not so.

It is discouraging to think that LZW could be orphaned at some time in the future. My archiving requirements, while not overly onerous, are sufficiently large that I truly hesitate to use BMP, uncompressed as that format is.

Up until now I have relied on multiple, removable hard drives for archiving and backup. I appreciate this is not ideal, nor totally secure.

While DVD may eventually come to my rescue, I have no stomach to invest in a storage medium still so very much "up in the air" over issues of compatibility and standards. The discs are still very pricey too!

What about PNG? It seems to offer the same advantages of lossless compression that LZW does but without the patent issue.

[MichaelT]

Danks,

Please allow me to make a few points...

While it could happen, LZW TIFFs are quite well supported (PS, etc) and I do not think that it will go away. But as you see not all products can support it because of the license fee.

But please let me make it clear, that Archive Creator is fully compatable with TIFF LZW and every other file format in terms of Archive. It is just that we cannot make the thumbnail or viewing image without the license. So in the Index there will be an icon instead of a photo. Obviously not a great thing when you are looking for the image, but the LZW file IS archived. I just wanted to make sure that you understand that.

And, for example, you could point ThumbPlus or iMatch at the CD and index those LZW files into the ThumbsPlus database, with thumbnail images.

So Archive Creator can archive all file, it just cannot create images in the index...the links in the index will be text only, but the index will be there.

I hope that this clears things up a bit..

[Danks]

No. I did not appreciate that. That changes everything. The thumbs are certainly very nice but not essential. I am concerned more with backup in case of theft, fire or other disaster.

I'll try archiving one of my groups, about 400 LZW TIFFs and see what happens.

Thanks . . .