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I thought Adobe Photoshop could do everything, but apparently it cannot read multipage TIFF files.

I have a TIFF file with four pages, and I need to edit one of the pages. Windows Picture Viewer can print all four pages, but cannot split them. Anyone know how I can split the original TIFF into four separate images suitable for editing?

The Google search for "free tiff splitter windows" returns lots of suspicious looking downloads.

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  • 2
    JUST USE GIMP! it should come with a preinstalled TIFF images plugin that can seperate them! :D
    – user102363
    Oct 21, 2011 at 2:28
  • note my answer below - if you have Photoshop you probably have Acrobat, and it'll do this natively.
    – Argalatyr
    Apr 26, 2016 at 5:16
  • Not enough rep to post but I ended up using code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsdesktop/…. It only comes as source code but it works well and is fast (which was important for me).
    – Chris Rae
    Mar 22, 2018 at 15:04

14 Answers 14

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The King of image transformation software is Image Magick. You can use this to do most image translations / conversions, and it's a respected (and therefore as safe) as these things can be.

It's a command line tool, but more powerful for that. At a command prompt, simply type ...

convert multipage.tif single%d.tif

to create multiple tif files.

On Windows, you must add magick to beginning of the command:

magick convert multipage.tif single%d.tif
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    Just keep in mind that the other convert program may be earlier in your path and thus called from the above code. What does it do? It converts a FAT volume to NTFS. So be aware.
    – Pat
    Apr 30, 2012 at 0:40
  • You will probably also need to add tiff support as described here: stackoverflow.com/questions/12943947/…
    – Hannele
    Feb 13, 2015 at 23:52
  • Is there any way to make it work with 32-bit TIFF images?
    – mrgloom
    Aug 4, 2016 at 16:27
  • For mac users with homebrew: brew install imagemagick Tiff support is included by default.
    – spencer.sm
    Aug 29, 2016 at 20:32
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    There is no convert tool in Image Magick.
    – Dims
    Sep 25, 2017 at 15:40
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There is a free Tiff Splitter:

A simple WinForms app that opens a multi-page tiff file and saves all pages as individual tiff files. The input file can be selected through file browsing, or drag-and-dropped from the File Explorer.

Requires .NET 4.0 / Tested on Windows 7

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    Welcome to Super User! If you're affiliated, then please use the "edit" link to tell us about that. Thanks!
    – Arjan
    Feb 7, 2011 at 17:43
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    This works very, very well.
    – VictorKilo
    Jan 31, 2013 at 21:43
  • Worked great. Simple and effective!
    – Martijn Heemels
    Jul 25, 2013 at 14:42
  • Simple and easy and straight to the point!!
    – Anto Varghese
    Jun 22, 2015 at 12:18
  • Not work correctly with 32-bit float TIFF images.
    – mrgloom
    Aug 4, 2016 at 16:28
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Microsoft Office Document Imaging (MODI) can split a TIFF using the Page>Move pages to a new file option (select pages you want to split out from the original file first).

MODI is installed as part of Office 2003, and although I believe a version was included with office XP/2002, I think it was an optional install and may not have the TIFF writer necessary to carry out this task (can't test here, sorry!).

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You can use irfanview, the swiss-army imaging knife for windows. See this thread

i_view32.exe c:\multipage.tif /extract=(c:\temp,jpg)
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Imagemagick worked for me real good. Wnen splitting a tiff file, basically converting from tiff to tiff, one can use a flag to force saving output files to individual tiff files. To do that, try 

convert input.tif output-%d.tif

The %d operator is a C-Printf style %d. So, if you need a 3 field running sequence, you can say 

convert input.tif output-%3d.tif

and so on.. %d is replaced by "scene" number of the image. Now, scene numbers may or may not always start with 0 (or 1, if you want it that way). To setup a sequence the way you want, try 

convert input.tif -scene 1 output-%3d.tif

This would start the sequence right from the count you provided. 

convert -scene 1 input.TIF output-%d.TIF
output-1.TIF
output-2.TIF
output-3.TIF

Magick indeed!! :)

This link to documentation has more details. This works on my windows machine too.

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If you have PDF writing software installed, you can convert the multi-page TIFF to PDF and open that in Photoshop. Photoshop will then give previews of the various pages and let you select one or more to open.

If your PDF software won't do this, you can convert the TIFF for free at acrobat.com (requires a free registration).

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I would suggest Tiff Splitter. It's free, works well for me, has no spyware, and good reviews.

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  • Doesn't seem to be free any longer.
    – Kyle A
    Jan 30, 2013 at 23:45
  • 1
    Doesn't seem to exist any longer now. :)
    – Chris Rae
    Mar 22, 2018 at 14:55
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You don't need software. Just open the Tiff file with a photoviewer or something like that. Then select "make a copy" or "save as". Rename the file and change the format type to Jpeg. Save it to any location of your choice. It will make a copy of the current page you were working on but as a single page. Hope that helps. It worked for me.

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Open file using Windows Picture Viewer then print to Microsoft OneNote selected pages or all pages. You can edit and save page(s) to pdf or doc format by Microsoft OneNote.

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  • I find pdf has more universal display quality, so I have ended up printing to pdf instead of one-note.
    – EngrStudent
    Nov 16, 2020 at 20:03
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Adobe Acrobat can do this natively (I'm using Acrobat DC on Win 10; I doubt the Acrobat Reader can do this but I have not checked).

Just open the multi-page TIFF in Acrobat then save as TIFF under a new name - it will add "_nnn" numbered suffixes as one might hope it would.

Ridiculous that Photoshop won't do the same.

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  • One can save multiple image tiff file as a .pdf file via "save as" option in Adobe Acrobat DC. Open tiff file in Adobe Acrobat DC and then select "save as".
    – Erdogan CEVHER
    Apr 19, 2019 at 6:22
  • Yes, that's basically what I suggested (and the OP seemed to ask about splitting TIFFs) but for a different purpose you could choose any of the file formats offered in the "save as" dialog box.
    – Argalatyr
    Apr 20, 2019 at 15:29
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Install Imagistik Image Viewer (freeware).

Open the multi page TIFF file and choose: File > Convert to TIFF, GIF, PNG etc. > Convert Current Page... > Save as ...

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I just came across this very issue and was able to solve it with Gimp (freeware, highly trustworthy)

It'll open the image as layers; simply hide all but one and choose "save as" then repeat for the remaining layers.

If you save as a JPEG you'll have terrible quality loss problems (but much more manageable file sizes).

Crazy that photoshop won't do this.

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I found a simple solution for small tasks but it requires a bit computer work, and any fax program that is installed on your pc. what you do is open the document send it to print in the fax program each page separately before it actually fax ask to preview the page from this point you can copy each page and paste in a word document good luck

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use TiffToy, it will keep the original quality if the TIFF pages are compressed with JPEG. Otherwise use ImageMagick as already suggested.

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