---
name: "tifffastcrop"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "largetifftools"
version: "1.4.2-1"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/tifffastcrop"
---

# tifffastcrop(1)

## NAME

```
  tifffastcrop - extracts (crops) a rectangular region from a tiff
file, avoiding loading the full source image input.tif into memory.
```

## USAGE

```
  tifffastcrop [options] -E x,y,w,l input.tif [output]
```

## DESCRIPTION

tifffastcrop takes a single-image TIFF file, reads the rectangular  region of width w, length l, and top left corner at position (x,y) in  pixels and stores it into a new file. The function is similar to what  tiffcrop from LibTIFF does but tifffastcrop works also on very large  TIFF files and it tries to read as little as possible from the source  image into memory, whereas many programs open the whole image even if a  very small region is requested. Therefore, it is much faster on large  files.

If the "output" name is provided, the result is stored into a file with  that name, in the format guessed from the extension of this filename if  guess is possible (and in TIFF format if not), or in the format  specified by options. Otherwise, the name given to the output file is  created by adding the specification of the cropped region after the name  of the original image and before the extension.

## PERFORMANCES

In principle, cropping a (small) region from a large TIFF file can also  be achieved with several tools, as tiffcrop, ImageMagick and  GraphicsMagick. However, most of the programs start with opening and  deciphering the whole image either in memory or in a huge temporary  file on the disk, which makes them quite slow, and often unable to  complete the task by lack of memory.

In contrast, tifffastcrop reads as little as possible from the source  image. If the input file is a tiled TIFF with reasonable tile size, it  should read barely more than the cropped region. This yields speedup  and guarantees successful termination of the process even on computers  with modest memory. Eg. to crop a region of size 256x256 pixels in the  middle of a JPEG-compressed tiled TIFF image of size 180224x70144,  on a computer with 16 GiB of RAM and an i7 CPU, tifffastcrop  needs 0.3 seconds while GraphicsMagick needs more than 80 minutes and  tiffcrop and ImageMagick fail.

## OPTIONS

- **-v**

  Verbose monitoring.

- **-T**

  Do not report TIFF errors or warnings. Under Windows, they are reported with noisy dialog boxes.

- **-E \<x in pixels\>,\<y in pixels\>,\<width in pixels\>,\<length in pixels\>**

  Specification of the rectangular region to extract (crop). The top left  corner (x,y) has to be inside the source image. Special value -1 for  width or length means "as big as possible". If the rectangle extends  beyond the limits of the source image, its dimensions are adjusted.  Examples: -E 10,20,512,256 or -E 0,0,-1,-1 (the latter means full image,  whatever its dimensions).

- **-o \<offset in bytes\>**

  Specify that only image in TIFF directory at position offset in source  file will be read and handled. Takes precedence over -d option.

- **-d \<range 1\>\[,\<range 2\>...\]**

  Specify non-empty ranges of TIFF directory numbers (starting at 0) from  which extracts should be made. A range is specified as \<starting  number\>-\<ending number\> or \<starting number\>:\<ending number\>. Ending  number is included: for instance, range 3-3 means fourth directory. If  starting number is omitted, is it assumed to be 0 (first directory). If  ending number is omitted or -1, it means the last directory of the file.

   If several -d options are given, their ranges cumulate.

- **-j\[#\]**

  Requests output of JPEG files rather than the default TIFF. Optional  number # in the range 0 to 100 indicates wanted JPEG quality (default is  75).

- **-p\[#\]**

  Requests output of PNG files rather than the default TIFF. Optional  number # in the range 0 to 9 indicates wanted PNG compression level  (default is currently 6).

   If several of -j, -p, and -c options are given, only the last one takes  effect.

- **-c \<method\>\[:opt\[:opt\]...\]**

  Requests output of TIFF files compressed with method. Method can be  \`none' for no compression, \`jpeg', \`lzw', \`zip'... as provided by the  LibTIFF library (see libtiff (3TIFF)). By default, the same compression  as in the input TIFF file is used.

   Method-specific details of the wished compression can be specified by  adding one or several group of characters starting with a colon \`:'  after the methods's name, as follows.

  Option to (TIFF compressed with) JPEG method: \
    :# set compression quality level as in option -j (see above).

  LZW, Deflate (zip) and LZMA2 options:\
    :# set predictor value\
    :p# set compression level.

  For example, -c lzw:2 to get LZW-encoded data with horizontal  differencing, -c zip:3:p9 for Deflate encoding with maximum compression  level and floating point predictor, -c jpeg:r:50 for JPEG-encoded RGB  data at quality 50%.

   If several of -j, -p, and -c options are given, only the last one takes  effect.

## SEE ALSO

**[tiffsplittiles(1)](/tiffsplittiles/1.md), [tiffmakemosaic(1)](/tiffmakemosaic/1.md), [tiffsplit(1)](/tiffsplit/1.md), [tiffcrop(1)](/tiffcrop/1.md),** libtiff(3TIFF)

**Home Page**

```
https://pperso.ijclab.in2p3.fr/page_perso/Deroulers/software/largetifftools/
```

## AUTHOR

Christophe Deroulers