Insufficient data storage capabilities: TIFF

[alanrock]

I'm relatively new to PI, let's just get that out there up front!
I've been working on an image, and I finally have it looking presentable, but when I try to save it as a TIFF file, I get the above message and when I open the file in PS, it looks like crap. I am choosing the 16 bit unsigned option when I save it. I'm on a Mac, and using the latest versions of everything. Any ideas?
Thanks!
Alan

[RickS]

What sort of crap does it look like?  Messed up colours (maybe a colour management issue) or too dark (only screen stretched?) or something else?

Cheers,
Rick.

[alanrock]

Ok, so there's a slight chance I was comparing a screen stretched image to one that wasn't. 
Having said that, does the error mean anything?

[msmythers]

Alan

I cannot speak as an authority on the warning but I believe this is what it means. 

The warning,

** Warning: Insufficient data storage capabilities: TIFF

, not to be confused with an error is because the TIFF format cannot save FITS and now XIFS keywords. These keywords are present once you start processing a PI integrated image. If you save a processed image as a jpg you will get that message along with ** Warning: Insufficient numerical accuracy: JPEG. 

The wording of the warning has changed over the years but here is the earliest mention I can find. 

From Juan in 2007

This is not a bug. It is the strict file save mode that PixInsight uses by default. You probably have seen a warning message on "missing format capabilities" upon saving the TIFF file. In this case, the reason is probably that the TIFF format cannot save FITS header keywords.

https://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=311.msg1164#msg1164

Again these are just warnings to alert you are not saving a file in a format that will maintain all information.

One more bit of information. If you open a 16-bit tiff and use something like curves on the image, you can save that image and not get the error. No keywords were generated during that processing.


Mike

[alanrock]

Thanks!