For most of us, there is no advantage. RAW is the native format from the camera containing everything the camera was able to capture. When you edit the RAW file you save the edits as a JPEG for most uses. The RAW file should always remain untouched.

A TIFF file is a format that is not compressed, and as such can be edited over and over without losing information through multiple compressions. A JPEG is compressed each time you save it, and after many edits and saves it loses some noticeable quality.

Some houses / clients require a TIFF file format when making a submittal, but that is the exception for most of us. Since a TIFF is such a large file size, contains less information than a RAW file, and when printed is indistinguishable from a newly created JPEG, there is little reason to create or save files in the TIFF format.

That is not to say there are no advantages to TIFF. The most notable being it is a non-lossy file format that is universal (non-proprietary) and is not dependent on a camera or software vendor's support and periodic changes. Some folks worry about that. But most software vendors (notably Adobe's products) continually update and support all major camera RAW file formats.


Some houses / clients require a TIFF file format when making a submittal, but that is the exception for most of us. Since a TIFF is such a large file size, and it contains less information than a RAW file, and when printed is indistinguishable from a newly RAW to JPEG edit, there is little reason to create or save files in the TIFF format.

That is not to say there are advantages to TIFF. The most notable being it is a non-lossy file format that is universal (non-propritary) and is not dependent on a camera or software vendor's support and periodic changes.

All I can say is;
I wish I had saved all my digital photos as Tiff and saving on a separate disc, before editing them and playing around with them.

The photos I took many years ago (digitally) are corrupt from saving them (same photo, not duplicate) over and over again. It's very disheartening to open a file and it's smaller than what you took it, because you didn't save the original, use a duplicate to edit, and resized them through a batch file!

I could kick myself. For the last few years I've been saving all my shots as Tiff (the original) and saving to disc as soon as I load them to my computer. The original photo will always be there to copy to my computer.

OK... As pure photographers, TIFF format wouldn't seem to make sense, but if you intend to have an image published, like in a brochure, newspaper, annual report, etc., etc. TIFF is the vastly preferred format.

InDesign, the leading publishing composition software, where the above is typically created and published with, does not accept RAW files.

So a typical Art Director/Designer's workflow ( which is what I primarily am), would be to accept images in RAW or high res JPEG's ( as stock image company's- I figure only because they are so commonly supported), and open and retouch in PhotoShop. I retain original image in original format, the layered photoshop files and archive these, and save again as either: a flattened PhotoShop file ( to retain any transparacy I want such as silhouettes), or a flattened TIFF or sometimes layered TIFF, ( tiffs will retain a clipping paths and alpha channels) and convert them to CMYK to be placed into the InDesign document. These flattened images are what I actually send to the printer, along with the InDesign document. That's what tiff's are for.

You can place and use JPEG's but the image degradation is something we professional designers want to avoid. I only create jpeg's or png's, gif's for use on the web. ( Always retaining the original image in all it's original splendor, for possible re-editing if ever needed)

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/imagetypes.htm