TIFF filesize issues

[bdcsoho]

Hello Loïc,

I wrote a custom app to process a scanned document (for example named proef.tif) consisting of more than 20 pages. Each page has to be processed by a operator and assigned to a project.
If a page has been processed/assigned, I'll use the Drawtext function to write specific text in red on this page so they know the page has already been processed by someone, topic of page, and date and time of assignment.

To make sure this information persists for every page, I have to save the original TIFF file (proef.tif) after each assignment. the Filename remains the same throughout this process. But every page saved/assigned to a project, is stored as a PDF (for this I use saveaspdf command from your toolkit).

Saving the original TIFF file with the extra remarks, is done using the TiffSaveMultiPageToFile command .

Now it is odd to see what happens with proef.tif.
It's original size was 200 KB (see backup.tif for the original tiff file) and consists of 6 pages.
I assigned page 1 to a project, and put "BFcases . .." on the bottom part of page 1 using Drawtext. Then issued TiffSaveMultipagetoFile command and after this, the filesize of proef.tif increased from 200 KB to 1 MB in size.. Weird !
Even better.. I assigned a second page (that sample is not included) and when using tiffsavemultipagetofile again on proef.tif, it's filesize now increases from 1 MB to 1,6 MB . ...

What can I do to keep TIFF filesize low , but still including textual information - if I use Adobe PDF Writer, or CutepDF or Foxit PDF Writer, then filesizes are very low and remain low.

May be I don't see the real solution that you probably have at hand ?

Advice appreciated.
Thanks in advance,

[Tom Moran]

Hi:

Loic may have a better answer for you, however, here's my guess as to what is happening.

Your scanned document is probably at 1 bpp at maybe 100 to 300 dpi. When you start editing (drawing on) Tiff in color you are changing the color depth of the image. My guess is your TIFF is now a 24 or 32 bit image when you save it so the file-size increases.

What I do in cases like yours is: Once you are finished editing the document and before you save as a PDF, convert the edited Tiff to 16 color 4bpp. Also you can change the dpi to 72 if you are only going to view the document and not print. With these reductions in color depth and dots-per-inch you'll see a big reduction in file size.

Tom

[bdcsoho]

Hi Tom,

I will try that !

thank you for the suggestions,