TIFF, BMP, PPM and JFIF: What These Image Formats Are and How to Convert Them

Short answer: TIFF, BMP, PPM and JFIF are image formats that browsers and apps often cannot show. Convert TIFF to PNG (lossless) or JPG (smaller), BMP and PPM to JPG or PNG, and JFIF to JPG. Imgovo does all of these in your browser, one file or many, with a ZIP download, and nothing is uploaded.

At a glance

Format	Typical source	Compression	File size	Opens in browsers?
TIFF	Scanners, print workflows, archives	Usually uncompressed or lossless (LZW, ZIP)	Very large	Mostly not
BMP	Old Windows programs, simple tools	Usually uncompressed	Very large	Often yes, but not good for the web
PPM (Netpbm)	Image-processing code, courses, Linux tools	Uncompressed	Very large	No
JFIF	Some downloads and apps that save JPEG as .jfif	Lossy, same codec as JPG	Small	Often yes, but some apps reject the extension

TIFF

TIFF is a format for printing, scanning and archiving. It keeps image data with little or no loss, so files are very large, and most browsers do not display it.

Convert it: use TIFF to PNG for a lossless copy or TIFF to JPG for a smaller file. You can convert in the other direction with JPG to TIFF.

What to expect from Imgovo’s TIFF converter:

• Multi-page files: only the first full-size page is converted. Small thumbnail pages are skipped.
• Compression: uncompressed and LZW-compressed files were tested. Other common compressions use the same decoder.
• Bit depth: 16-bit files are reduced to 8 bits per channel.
• Colour models: grayscale, palette and RGB(A) work. CMYK and other models are converted to RGB without a colour profile, so colours can shift slightly.
• Output: PNG with 8 bits per channel (RGBA), lossless, with transparency preserved. Metadata such as colour profile, camera data and DPI label is not copied.
• Size: many TIFFs are stored uncompressed, so the PNG is often 2–3 times smaller.
• Very large scans: the file size is checked from the header, and very large scans are refused with a message instead of crashing.

GeoTIFF: the converter page does not list GeoTIFF as supported or tested. A GeoTIFF may convert as an ordinary image, but the geographic information is stored as metadata, which is not copied into the PNG. For mapping work, use GIS software.

BMP

BMP is the simple Windows bitmap. It stores every pixel without compression, so it is large and not suitable for the web. You may still need it for older programs or devices that only read BMP.

Convert it: JPG to BMP creates a standard uncompressed 24-bit BMP at 72 DPI, which opens in Paint, Photoshop, GIMP and practically every other program. The reverse is BMP to JPG.

Things to know:

• No transparency: transparent areas are filled with white.
• Size: each pixel takes 3 bytes. A 12-megapixel photo becomes a BMP of roughly 36 MB. Resize first if you need a smaller file, with Resize Image.
• Batch: you can add several files, and download them one by one or as a ZIP.

PPM, PGM and PBM (Netpbm)

These are the simplest image formats there are, produced by image-processing code, computer-vision courses and Linux tools. Most viewers cannot open them.

Convert it: PPM to JPG supports all six variants P1–P6, ASCII and binary, in colour, greyscale and black and white, including 16-bit files. Use PNG instead of JPG when you need exact pixel values, for example to check the output of an algorithm. Use JPG for viewing and sharing, since it is much smaller. To produce PPM, use JPG to PPM.

JFIF

A .jfif file is a JPEG image. It uses the same lossy codec as .jpg. The difference is the file extension and header, and some apps expect .jpg and reject .jfif.

Try the simple thing first: rename the file from .jfif to .jpg. That usually works and does not re-encode the image, so there is no quality loss.

If that fails: use JFIF to JPG. It re-encodes the JPEG, so a little quality may be lost (the default quality is 90%). Keep the original. The reverse tool is JPG to JFIF.

Which format should I convert to?

Goal	Convert to
Keep exact pixels, lossless	PNG
Small file for sharing or uploading	JPG
Smallest web images	WebP or AVIF
Old program that only reads BMP	BMP

The differences between the web formats are explained in JPG vs PNG vs WebP vs AVIF. For camera RAW files, see How to convert RAW files to JPG.

Converting several files at once

All of these converters accept multiple files. They are converted one after another, and you can download each result separately or everything together as a ZIP. Undo and Redo restore removed files and earlier settings, with Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Shift+Z. If you need a format that is not covered by a dedicated page, try the general Image Converter.

Privacy

Conversion happens in your browser, and the images are never sent to Imgovo or anyone else. The tools are free with no sign-up, no watermark and no daily limit. For how to verify that claim yourself, read Are online image converters safe?.

Do it now

Open TIFF to PNG, JPG to BMP, PPM to JPG or JFIF to JPG, drop in your files and download the result.