Downloading TIFF Files

Hi Ashley, can you see the file extension? What is it? Is it possible that your computer somehow defaults to opening TIFF with Notepad?

Thanks so much for these great replies!  I appreciate them.

I checked and my default .tif or .tiff viewer is IrfanView, which is actually what I want.  It’s the only viewer I have found that will show me more than the first page of my large .tif files.  When I tried the “Open With” option, it did not list IrfanView as a choice.

Trying to come up with some explanation but still confused.

Hi Libor,

Good question.  When I’m looking at the metadata for the asset, there is an option at the top that says “Preservation History.”  When I click on that, it shows all of the iterations of the asset as it has gone through the preservation process.  I downloaded the “true Original,” which is supposed to be a TIFF.

Thanks!

That makes sense to me.  And upon checking I found that that is exactly the problem.  The “true Original” doesn’t seem to have a file extension, while the “Original” has filename.jpg attached to it.  I suppose I can just weigh the benefits of downloading a .jpg vs. the true original .tif…  In the end, though, I would like the TIFF available.  Will have to take this up with the powers that be.  Thank you, everyone, for your help!

Hi Kate-

Thanks for your message.  I have a PC, running Windows.  I downloaded the file, saved it, and attempted the right click-rename function, to no avail.  Kind of stumped, but there must be a solution (I hope).

Thanks so much!

Ashley

By default Windows Explorer “helpfully” hides file extensions. I always turn this option off immediately, being a technical person who likes to see what’s actually going on. That might be getting in the way. You can rename it from the command line (rename xyz xyz.tif) if you can’t make Explorer do it.

It is also interesting how you got that content into Preservica without a file extension being recorded (or is it recorded but not preserved in that download?), maybe something to chase down in a support ticket.

Can you share a screenshot of what you’re seeing in Preservica for original, true original etc?

Instead of trying to rename the file, you could try to forcibly open it with IrfanView. In Windows, if you right-click the file (whatever its name happens to be), you should get an Open with option:

and selecting that should open a list of programs:
 

if you’re lucky, IrfanView is on the list, if you’re not, scroll down to the very bottom and you should see:
 

That should give you a navigation window that you should be able to use to point to where IrfanView is installed (C:\Program Files\IrfanView\i_view64.exe for me).

If you still can’t open it in IrfanView after that, the next thing to check would be that the file downloaded correctly, I would first check the file size on your PC matches what Preservica says, next thing would be to generate a SHA-1 checksum of the file on your PC, which should match the Checksum in the Advanced Information in Preservica. You might need to install a tool for generating such checksums, or the following powershell command should work, e.g.

Get-FileHash C:\Users\user1\Downloads\{filename} -Algorithm SHA1

Oh, I also forgot to say that I did try the “Open With” option to no avail.  I’ve also tried saving as a different type of file and adding the .tif file extension.

Hi Steve,

Don't even worry about it - I didn't notice. Lol!

A couple of things:

When the files leave my computer, so to speak, they are TIFF files. They have the proper extension and the file type is listed as "TIF File." I'm not sure what else to do about it.

I have changed the file extension a couple of ways, including the way you suggest, and the computer is still reading it as a Text Document.

I opened the file, with the new file extension, from within IrfanView (as the Open With option doesn't produce IrfanView on its list of choices). I get this:

I feel like I might being going nuts! Thank you for your help. I do appreciate it.

Thanks!

Ashley

Hi Ashley,

You have three hashes listed in your previous response:

cfeacd2b22e36f4886b0e53ced9099814d1c8c01

ca68cd02a54a83a275d7ec66e51228afd058e928

f426e336b8cdf56abdb45f20778720f193e45740

so, I’m slightly confused as to which hash is which. Comparing the hash you generate of the downloaded file with the hash Preservica has should tell us whether what you downloaded is the same as the system ingested.

Do you by any chance have the original copy of the file? If you can get a hash from that then we’ll have a “ground truth” for what it should be.

Thanks

Jack

Hi Ashley,

That they all match is a good thing, it means the file in Preservica is exactly what you sent, and you downloaded the file exactly as it was stored.

This means that the file you downloaded is identical to the original, so anything, like IrfanView, that was capable of opening and displaying the original should be fine with the downloaded copy too. I’m slightly stumped as to why it wouldn’t.