catalogue / tools / Images / TIFF to JPEG

Convert TIFF to JPEG

To convert TIFF to JPEG, send one POST to /v1/image-convert with the TIFF source and "format": "jpeg" in the body. Each call costs $0.003 in USDC on Base via x402, with no account and no API key. The source file can be up to 25 MB.

Endpoint
POST /v1/image-convert
Price
$0.003 per call

01Limits

LimitValue
Largest source file25 MB (26,214,400 bytes)
Timeout60 s
Source formatsAVIF, GIF, JPEG, PNG, SVG, TIFF, WebP
Output formatsJPEG, PNG, WebP
Option qualitydefault 80

02Example

A real TIFF to JPEG run of image-convert.

Request
POST /v1/image-convert
content-type: application/json
payment-signature: <base64 x402 payload>

{
  "url": "https://grist.tools/samples/images/pair-note.tiff",
  "quality": 80,
  "format": "jpeg"
}
Response
200 OK
payment-response: <base64 settlement receipt>

{
  "source_url": "https://grist.tools/samples/images/pair-note.tiff",
  "source_format": "tiff",
  "format": "jpeg",
  "mime_type": "image/jpeg",
  "width": 556,
  "height": 100,
  "bytes": 4293,
  "image_base64": "/9j/2wBDAAYEBQYFBAYGBQYHBwYIChAKCgkJChQODwwQFxQYGBcUFhYaHSUfGhsj..."
}

Source file: images/pair-note.tiff, 3.6 KB (3,690 bytes). LZW-compressed TIFF of the same 556x100 raster as ocr-scan.png: two uppercase lines drawn from a hand-written 5x7 bitmap font, SAMPLE SCAN FOR OCR and SECOND LINE 2026. The request sets quality to 80. The recorded run returned 4.2 KB (4,293 bytes) of JPEG, 1.2 times the source size, with an image of 556x100 pixels. Decoded, the JPEG in image_base64 opens with FF D8 FF DB 00 43 00 06 04 05 06 05.

In the sample itself, the little-endian header points to a first image file directory at byte 3,476 with 15 entries; that directory declares 556 by 100 pixels, 3 samples per pixel and compression LZW. In the returned JPEG: the start-of-image marker is followed directly by a 67-byte quantisation table segment (FF DB), with no JFIF APP0 segment in between: table 0, 8-bit precision, first quantiser value 6.

03Format notes

TIFF as a source

TIFF states its byte order in the first four bytes: II followed by an asterisk and a NUL marks a little-endian file, MM followed by a NUL and an asterisk a big-endian one. image-convert and the OCR detector both accept either order. TIFF can wrap several internal compression schemes; Grist does not inspect them and leaves decoding to the bundled libvips loader, refusing with a typed error a file whose pixels will not decode rather than returning a partial result. Before that, the header dimensions are checked against the shared decoded-pixel budget, which is sized so that a high-resolution page scan still fits while a decompression bomb does not. TIFF is read but not written: image-convert's encode enum has no TIFF entry, so on these pages the format appears only as a source.

JPEG as a target

image-convert writes JPEG through sharp with options pinned around the caller's quality value. mozjpeg is off, scans are baseline rather than progressive, chroma subsampling is fixed, coding is optimised, and trellis quantisation and overshoot deringing are both disabled. Fixing these settings means the same image, format and quality produce the same bytes on a given build, instead of drifting with a libvips default. The pixel grid is not resized; only codec and container change, and the response reports the width and height of the result. Because withMetadata is never called, EXIF and similar blocks are dropped. An animated input is opened with animation off, so its first frame is the one encoded. Video frames take another road: video-thumbnail decodes one picture and hands it to ffmpeg's mjpeg encoder, which streams it out through image2pipe.

Note: JPEG has no alpha channel, so any transparency in the source is lost.

04Errors

CodeHTTP
invalid_input400
blocked_target403
unreachable_target424
upstream_timeout424
unsupported_content_type415
too_large413
unprocessable422
internal500

When each is raised, and what it means for payment: /docs/image-convert.

05Questions

What does it cost to convert TIFF to JPEG?
$0.003 per call, paid in USDC on Base via x402.
How large can the TIFF file be?
Up to 25 MB (26,214,400 bytes). Past a limit the call answers too_large (413).
What happens if the conversion fails?
The tool answers with a typed JSON error from the errors table. Payment is settled only after the tool has produced its result; a call that fails inside the tool is never settled.

06Related