TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) is a pixel-based (bitmap) digital image file format and trademark of Adobe Systems, Inc. Among professional artists, photographers, and printers, it is the preferred format for platform-independent photograph storage and printing. Unlike JPEG, TIFF retains detail through successive file opening and edits. TIFF supports black and white, grayscale, RGB or CMYK color images and Photoshop layers.
Optional LZW (Lempel-Ziv-Welch) compression of TIFF is designed to reduce file size with no loss in quality. However, it may be incompatible with some applications and printers. Basically, the application and printer requires an Adobe PostScript Level 3 interpreter to decompress LZW TIFF on-the-fly. Reactive Imaging uses printers that include PostScript Level 3 therefore LZW TIFF files are accepted -- in fact, preferred.