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TIFF to BMP Converter

Convert a TIFF into a Windows BMP bitmap. Unlike every other conversion to BMP, this one frequently makes the file smaller — by half, for a 16-bit TIFF. That sounds like a bonus, and partly is, but the saving comes from things being removed. Worth knowing which things before you convert a master file.

Deleted automatically Uploads removed within 30 minutes

Drag and drop your TIFF images here

Add several at once. Each file is processed and then deleted from our server.

Up to 20 MB per file Batch ready

#ffffff

BMP cannot store transparency, so it is filled with this colour.

Step by step

How to convert TIFF to BMP in 3 steps

  1. Check whether your TIFF has several pages

    Only the first becomes the BMP; TIFF to PDF keeps them all.

  2. Add your TIFF and choose a background colour for any transparent areas

  3. Download your BMP

Format comparison

TIFF vs BMP

TIFF (Tagged Image File Format)

Lossless

A flexible container used in scanning, printing and archiving, where quality matters more than size.

  • Lossless, with high bit depths and CMYK for print
  • Standard in publishing and scanning workflows
  • Large files, and web browsers cannot display it

BMP (Windows Bitmap)

Uncompressed

An early Windows format that stores pixels more or less raw, with little or no compression.

  • Read by old and embedded software that knows nothing newer
  • No compression artefacts
  • Very large files for the image size

Why this one shrinks

A BMP stores exactly one thing: 8-bit red, green and blue for each pixel. A TIFF can store a great deal more, and every extra feature takes space. Converting drops those features, so the size falls by however much they were costing. Measured on the same photograph saved different ways:

  • Uncompressed 8-bit RGB TIFF: essentially no change. It was already a bitmap in all but name.
  • LZW-compressed TIFF: 8% smaller. That surprises people: LZW compression had actually made this photograph's TIFF larger than the uncompressed one, which is common — LZW relies on repetition, and photographs have almost none.
  • CMYK TIFF: 25% smaller — four ink channels become three screen channels.
  • 16-bit TIFF: 50% smaller — sixteen bits per channel become eight.
  • A TIFF with transparency: 25% smaller — the alpha channel is gone.

What is actually lost

CMYK becomes screen colour. Print files are often CMYK, describing ink rather than light. They are converted to RGB so they display correctly — but a round trip back to CMYK does not return the original ink values, so do not convert a print master and expect to print from the bitmap.

16-bit becomes 8-bit. The extra precision in a 16-bit TIFF is headroom for editing — it lets heavy adjustments happen without banding. It is rarely visible in the finished image, but once reduced to 8 bits it cannot be restored.

Extra pages are left out. A multi-page TIFF — typical from document scanners — becomes a single-page BMP containing page one. The tool counts the pages and tells you when that has happened.

Transparency is flattened onto the background colour you choose.

So is it ever worse?

Yes — and dramatically. Compression that achieves little on photographs is extremely effective on simple graphics and scanned text, so those TIFFs are small and their bitmaps are not. Measured on a 600 × 400 graphic: 10 KB as an LZW TIFF and 4 KB as a ZIP-compressed TIFF, both becoming a 720 KB BMP — roughly 70 and 170 times larger. The saving is typical for photographs and print files, not for everything.

What happens to transparent pixels when converting TIFF to BMP?

BMP cannot store transparency, so transparent and semi-transparent areas are blended onto a solid background before the file is saved — the colour you choose above, #FFFFFF by default. Keep your original TIFF if you may need the transparency again.

Quality

Quality and file size

There is no quality setting. The BMP records the image exactly, within BMP's limits: 8 bits per channel, RGB, no transparency, one page.

Keep the TIFF

If your TIFF is a master — a scan, a print file, an archival original — keep it, and treat the BMP as a derived copy for whatever needs it. Everything lost in this conversion is permanent, and the TIFF is the only thing that holds it.

Scanned documents

For scanned pages, BMP is rarely the right destination. Multi-page scans lose every page but the first, and black-and-white scans that a TIFF stored compactly become large. For documents, TIFF to PDF keeps every page losslessly and opens everywhere.

Background colour

Partly-transparent areas blend into the colour you choose, so soft edges stay smooth, but the colour is permanent. Older software that reads BMP often mishandles transparency, so an explicit colour is the dependable choice.

Where TIFF to BMP makes sense

  • Legacy Windows imaging software that reads BMP but not TIFF's many variants.
  • Embedded displays and industrial systems wanting simple raw pixels.
  • Machine vision and lab tools that process bitmaps directly.
  • Reducing the size of 16-bit or CMYK files when the extra data is not needed downstream.

Why TIFF is hard for some software

TIFF is not really one format but a flexible container with dozens of compression schemes, bit depths, colour models and layouts. Many programs support only the common cases and fail on the rest — a CMYK LZW file here, a 16-bit tiled image there.

BMP has almost no variation, which is precisely why some software accepts it and nothing else. Converting is a way of removing every variant a picky reader might trip over.

Related

TIFF to PNG is lossless too, keeps transparency and is usually far smaller than BMP — the better choice unless BMP is required. BMP to TIFF goes the other way.

What happens to your file

Browsers cannot read TIFF or write BMP, so this runs on our server. Your upload is deleted the moment conversion finishes, the result is deleted as you download it, and anything abandoned is swept automatically.

Privacy

What happens to your file

This tool runs on our server, so it works the same on every phone and computer. Your file is uploaded, and this is exactly what happens to it:

  • Stored outside the public web root under a random name, never under your file's name.
  • Processed, with the original upload deleted immediately — whether it succeeded or failed.
  • The result sits behind a signed link that only you receive, which stops working after 20 minutes, and the file is deleted the moment you download it.
  • Anything never collected is deleted automatically within 30 minutes.
  • The image itself is never logged or kept. If a conversion fails, we record the formats involved and the error — not the file.
  • Camera metadata, including any GPS coordinates recording where a photo was taken, is removed from the result. Only the rotation needed to show the image the right way up is kept.

Questions & answers

TIFF to BMP: frequently asked questions

Why did my file get smaller?

Because BMP stores only 8-bit RGB, and your TIFF was storing more. Measured on the same photo: 16-bit TIFFs shrank by half, CMYK and transparent TIFFs by a quarter, LZW TIFFs by 8%, and uncompressed 8-bit TIFFs barely changed. The saving is those extra features being removed.

My TIFF has several pages. What happens?

The BMP contains page one, since a bitmap holds a single image, and the tool tells you how many pages there were. For scanned documents, TIFF to PDF keeps every page.

What happens to a CMYK print file?

It is converted to RGB screen colour so it displays correctly. Converting back to CMYK will not restore the original ink values, so keep the TIFF for printing and use the BMP only as a screen copy.

Do I lose quality from a 16-bit TIFF?

You lose precision rather than visible quality. Sixteen bits per channel become eight — the extra was headroom for heavy editing without banding, and once reduced it cannot be restored. Keep the TIFF if you may edit further.

Can a TIFF get bigger as BMP?

Yes, dramatically. Compression that does little for photographs is very effective on simple graphics and scanned text: a 600 × 400 graphic was 4 KB as a ZIP-compressed TIFF and 720 KB as BMP, about 170 times larger. Shrinking is typical for photographs and print files, not guaranteed.

Should I use BMP or PNG?

PNG, unless something requires BMP. PNG is lossless, keeps transparency, and is usually far smaller. BMP is for legacy software, embedded displays and raw-pixel tools.

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