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I have 2 same size, dimensions, and resolution images in TIFF (6400x6400 pixels, 800x800 ppi). The files are 18.7MB and 27.0MB, they were created with R's tiff() with compression="lzw".

When I try to create a tile using

montage -compress lzw -tile 2x1 -geometry +0+0 Figure4L.tiff Figure4R.tiff Figure4.tiff

I get a file 12800x6400 TIFF which has a size of 12.8 MB, GIMP reports a resolution of 72 x 72 ppi.

GIMP also reports "Warning:The image you are loading has 16 bits per channel. GIMP can only handle 8 bit, so it will be converted for you. Information will be lost because of this conversion." which was not present in the initial images

What and why is being lost with the montage? Is the montaging lossless? Apparently not. Is there a better way to achieve my purpose without losing quality?

UPDATE: This might be related to how R writes TIFFs so I updated the tags. It might be also related to TIFF plot generation and compression: R vs. GIMP vs. IrfanView vs. Photoshop file sizes

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ECII
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  • does ImageMagick's `identify` function help you understand what's going on? – Ben Bolker Jan 02 '14 at 15:03
  • Nope, not really Ben. – ECII Jan 02 '14 at 15:08
  • I'm not fond of TIFFs anyway. Any chance you can work with PNGs and convert to TIFF at the end? – Ben Bolker Jan 02 '14 at 15:10
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    I would gladly throw TIFF out of the window but the publisher wants EPS or TIFFs (<10MB) and because its a contour plot with a smooth color transitions i can't do EPS (30-40 MB files). – ECII Jan 02 '14 at 15:12
  • that's why I suggested that you generate PNGs, stick them together with `montage`, then use `convert` to change them to TIFFs as a last step ... ? (I have seen a lot of publishers require TIFF or EPS. It mystifies me a little bit that they are stuck on these old formats ... I don't know what the advantages to them would be over PNG/PDF ...) – Ben Bolker Jan 02 '14 at 15:17
  • Totally agree with you. I still can't understand why they don't move to PNG/SVG. OK thanks will try that but it's still weird don't you think? – ECII Jan 02 '14 at 15:17
  • Yes (but I don't know how to answer your question ... hopefully someone else will enlighten us). – Ben Bolker Jan 02 '14 at 15:19
  • I tend to think that something is wrong with R rather than with Gimp or IrfanView. I am not on Windows so I cannot try Photoshop. – ECII Jan 02 '14 at 15:20

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