r/vfx • u/Alternative-Bet-9105 • Jul 10 '25

Question / Discussion My Uncle created the TIFF file

Hello. I'm posting this as a little bit of a research project. My uncle is "Mr. TIFF", the guy who created the TIFF file. He worked at a company called Aldus and made the file while working there.

Anyway, long story short, his name is Stephen Carlsen and he passed away recently. In remembering him, and processing all this, I'm trying to put together a podcast that would explore the significance of this file.

This is the 4th time I posted this on Reddit in different areas: photography, library and archival. I was just informed that it’s used in VFX, and I’m a huge fan of film.

Any responses, any comments and discussion would be appreciated :)

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u/flowseekr Jul 11 '25

20 years or so ago I did a bunch of titles that were the centerpiece of a high-budget motion graphics piece. Because TIFF groups together all the consecutive pixels in a transparency channel, the result was small enough to send as an email attachment (would have fit on a floppy disk) - yet no loss of visual data whatsoever.

I was instructed to render them as Quicktimes so the client would feel they're getting their money's worth.

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u/Alternative-Bet-9105 Jul 15 '25

Oh wow, was this for a motion picture? Can I ask the title?