Help opening a .tif doc file

Werdna

So I've wracked the internet downloading software to finally open a .tif document sent to me as an email attachement. It's important for me to open and print ASAP.

I have an older Mac OSX program. Anyone know have any sure-fire software or any comp saavy tips?

At work I've used brand new desktop Macs in addition to some Dell at the public library. All with no success. Help please.

LaOs

Werdna wrote: »

So I've wracked the internet downloading software to finally open a .tif document sent to me as an email attachement. It's important for me to open and print ASAP.

I have an older Mac OSX program. Anyone know have any sure-fire software or any comp saavy tips?

At work I've used brand new desktop Macs in addition to some Dell at the public library. All with no success. Help please.

A .tif is just an image... shouldn't any image viewing program be able to do it?

Dark Moon

That's an image. Preview can open it if the file is in good health.

Werdna

At my work, where I can't download software onto our newer Macs, Preview says it is corrupt or the program isn't updated to read it.

Preview at home just doesn't do anything.

DrFrylock

Can't QuickTime player open TIFFs? Otherwise, Photoshop would be ideal...

Werdna

DrFrylock wrote: »

Can't QuickTime player open TIFFs? Otherwise, Photoshop would be ideal...

gives me a broken quicktime sign.

Daenris

You may have a broken tiff file in that case. Any chance you can get in touch with the sender and have them resend or send in a different format?

Werdna

Daenris wrote: »

You may have a broken tiff file in that case. Any chance you can get in touch with the sender and have them resend or send in a different format?

Waiting and waiting for that to happen. thanks for you input.

Szechuanosaurus

Either it's broken or it's not really a tif.

While you wait, try systematically changing the file extension, starting with obvious image formats (.jpg, .gif, .pdf, .eps, .psd, .doc etc.). Some people seem to think 'change file extension to .tif' is the same as 'save as tiff'.

Rhaven

If you can, you might want to suggest that the sender zip (or stuff, or whatever) the file before sending it to you. I've had problems with .tifs becoming corrupted in transit (e-mail or ftp), and zipping them seems to prevent this.

And, assuming it is really a .tif, you're probably screwed (with that particular file, anyway) if you can't open it in preview. I find that preview tends to do better than photoshop at opening files with slight problems. Several times I've had trouble opening files in photoshop but managed to open them in preview, resave them and then was able to work with them in photoshop.

skress1

I'd suggest trying to open it with Image J (http://rsbweb.nih.gov/ij/download.html).
It's a free software package that was developed by NIH for data analysis.
It can open virtually any type of tif file (there are various types used in the science community).