TIF to FITS Converter
Processing entirely on your device — large files may take a moment.
Convert FITS frames to PNG or JPG to preview telescope data, or pack them into a ZIP for sharing. If your files are still in TIF format, this page is the shortcut: TIF is the three-letter spelling of TIFF — identical Tagged Image File Format data, shortened extension common in printing pipelines.
iLoveConverter processes everything locally on your computer, which makes it private and fast: no upload wait, no server storage, no limits. Add as many files as you like — batch conversion is built in.
How TIF compares to FITS
| TIF | FITS | |
|---|---|---|
| Compression | Lossless (LZW/ZIP) or none | None (optionally Rice/GZIP) |
| Transparency | Supported (alpha channel) | Not supported |
| Animation | Not supported | Not supported |
| Metadata | Rich tag system (EXIF, GeoTIFF) | Rich text header (WCS) |
| Best for | Print, scanning, archival | Telescope frames, science data |
How to convert TIF to FITS
- 1
Select your files
Drag & drop your TIF files onto the area above, or click to browse. You can add multiple files at once for batch conversion.
- 2
Convert instantly
Click "Convert to FITS". The conversion runs entirely inside your browser using WebAssembly — no upload, no queue, no waiting.
- 3
Download results
Download each converted FITS file individually, or grab everything at once as a ZIP archive.
About the TIF format
TIFF, introduced by Aldus in 1986 and maintained by Adobe since, is the workhorse of the scanning, printing and archiving industries. It is a tag-based container: baseline RGB, CMYK, grayscale and indexed color, compressed with lossless LZW or ZIP (or not at all), with 8- or 16-bit depth and even multiple pages in a single file. A scanned contract or a print-ready magazine page lives in TIFF.
Its historical weakness is dialect fragmentation: the tag system is so flexible that exotic TIFFs — GeoTIFFs, fax TIFFs, certain 16-bit CMYK variants — still trip up careless readers. Files are huge, and no browser displays TIFF natively, so it never escaped its professional niches.
+Strengths
- ✓Lossless with up to 16-bit-per-channel depth
- ✓Multipage support — one file, many scans
- ✓CMYK and print-industry color handling
- ✓Rich, extensible tag metadata for archiving
!Limitations
- −Very large files, even compressed
- −Dialect fragmentation trips up simple readers
- −No native browser display
About the FITS format
FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) has carried professional astronomy data since 1981: every file opens with a plain-text header that records telescope, instrument, exposure, filters and world coordinates, followed by raw pixel arrays — often 16-bit or float, sometimes data cubes.
Values can be negative or far above display range, so FITS never looks right in a photo viewer. Converting to PNG applies a simple scaling pass that reveals the nebula or galaxy in the numbers — good for previews, while science pipelines keep the original.
+Strengths
- ✓Self-documenting science headers
- ✓High bit depth (16/32-bit, float)
- ✓The standard of every observatory
!Limitations
- −Not display-ready
- −Files are large and uncompressed
Why convert TIF to FITS?
Converting makes sense where the strengths of FITS meet what TIF cannot give you. Self-documenting science headers Meanwhile Very large files, even compressed One pass through the converter above puts your file on the right side of that trade-off.
Frequently asked questions
Is this TIF to FITS converter really free?
Yes — completely free, with no sign-up, no watermark and no daily conversion limits. The site is supported by advertising.
Are my files uploaded to a server?
No. The conversion runs entirely inside your browser using WebAssembly, so your files never leave your device — that is what makes it instant and private.
Does it work on Windows, Mac, iPhone and Android?
Yes. Anything with a modern browser works: Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS. No software installation is required.
Will I lose quality converting TIF to FITS?
No — FITS is a lossless format, so every pixel of the converted image matches your original TIF file. You can also adjust the quality/size balance before converting when the target format supports compression.
Will transparent areas survive the conversion to FITS?
Transparency is kept whenever FITS actually supports an alpha channel. If the target format has none (like JPG), transparent areas are flattened onto a white background — that is a property of the format, not of this tool.
What happens to EXIF data and other metadata?
Conversions here re-encode the image, and re-encoding generally does not carry the original metadata over. If the EXIF data of your TIF files matters (camera model, GPS, timestamps), keep the original file as the master and treat the converted copy as the shareable version.