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1-bit TIF files?
Okay, so I searched here, as well as the web, and have had no success…
first, the backstory: I was a prepress guy and a graphic artist for about 12 years, and although created hundreds of original logos and redrew thousands in Illustrator and prefer vector, I have hundreds of thousands of 1-bit (BW) TIF files (logos, artwork, etc.), which of course, AE doesn’t like – “unsupported color mode”. In most graphics programs, you can throw a 1-Bit TIF file in, click on a color swatch, and you’re done… transparent white, black changes to color you want. Now I’m in the “litigation support” industry, and the backbone of production there is a 1-bit CCIT4 TIF (a compression standard, often called fax-4 TIF group level 4 or such). I am easily able to make a Photoshop action to make a grayscale version with a transparent background (or not, as is typically the case for the scanned legal documents), or a BW PNG, GIF, even a PDF file that has CCIT4 compression. I know how to do a workaround, but the files grow tremendously in size, and in the case of a PDF, are not transparent.FINALLY – THE QUESTION!
Does anyone know of a plugin or import filter that would allow me to import these files without a conversion? I’d prefer to have the option of transparent whites or not. Of course, if I had my preference, I could also skip the “hue/saturation – colorize” step to add color.
Any assistance would be appreciated – I’m no programming genius, but I have definitely seen that there are browser plugins etc. to support TIF viewing, so I’m sure there must be a (relatively) easy way to do it. I’m not even asking for multipage TIF support (although it would be nice, as an image sequence import/export option). I knew the TIF format was complex, but during my research, I was astounded; the variants are HUGE.
Anyway – any assistance along these lines would be appreciated, including a better workaround –
I have and use AE6.5, Photoshop CS, Illustrator CS, Quicktime Pro, an older version of iView Media which does some great batch conversion (I probably won’t update now that it’s a Microsoft product, but maybe, if there’s a compelling reason), as well as a number of other apps, and am willing to try new things.
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2 Replies
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Whether you change it to 8-bit now or have to output it to 8-bit later (you’ll have no lower choice for video output) the file size will increase.
I, too, worked in print for 3 years and while it would be cool if it were as simple as you wish it were, the alternative isn’t really that bad.
You make a script in Photoshop to convert the 1-bit to 8-bit and select all white and delete it (if there’s any white) [play with the script when you record it on your first file]and save as tif (or PNG) with Alpha. Then run the script on the folder. You may want to reduce the file size (literally dimensions) to a more video manageable size, just little bigger than HD or whatever; but you probably already knew most of this. -
Thanks XONIKZ,
Yes – I was aware of the lower-end limitations, but after reading some documentation, it appears a plugin would be able to take it, in one fell swoop, colorize, anti-alias and utilize the bit depth change. I downloaded the AE SDK after looking at a number of posts on creating a plugin for AE, but guess I’m not so interested as to buy Virtual Studio to make it happen. I’ve got a number of ways to resolve this issue, just always thought this is one of a number of possibilities. My guess it would take someone that’s scripted plugins before a very short amount of time using the TiffLib work that’s already been done. I’ll try to bug some of the locals about it!
Rhett
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