Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

If I try to save certain Tiffs with their edits as Tiffs I get the Error Message: Tag may contain only ASCI string data. See attached. I can save them as jpgs. I haven't worked out why some Tiffs but not all do this. Any ideas/work around?

I am a bit lost as usual.
You are showing the CONVERT IMAGE screen, not the SAVE EDITs screen
You cannot save any editing filters from that screen. You can append editing filters but your dot shows that you are in the mode that says, CREATE A TIF and make sure whatever I did earlier in the Editor is incorporated into the new TIF.
This screen creates new images.

The screen snap shows the box that saves the created filters from the Editor. The boxes are very similar.

I cannot repeat the error message. I even added IPTC text and thought maybe the CONVERT didn't like it.
No problem.
Does this occur with any image or just this one?

Fred

 Sorry not to make it clear but I was trying to save the tiffs with their QI edits by converting them to tiffs incorporating the edit files (ie .flt and .qrs files). I can then edit them further in my photo editor. This usually works with no problems. It could be that the photo is made up of several tiffs showing an action sequence. I've attached the jpg version reduced to email size by QI to show what I mean. I was wondering if there is a way to clear the tags it mentions.

The picture looks like 2 1/2 mile Island in Pa.

I think what you are saying is that this image or similar images that have been merged in another program give the error message.

Maybe Mike will be along to see the error and have a better response than I did.

Fred

This looks like a corrupted header.  Where did the original image come from?  This message appears whenever binary data is found in a TIFF string tag.  That in itself is an indication of file corruption.

Mike

I combined the four separate images using Photomatix as with HDR but with the same exposures rather than 2 stops difference.
The same error comes up with a seven separate images combination of the tall chimney falling. It never happens with HDR so it might be because they all have the same exposure. I'll try with 1/3 stop differences and see if that works. I wanted Tiffs because the verticals are a bit out and I also wanted to lose the electricity cables at the base of the chimney. The jpg has printed up fine but it's only 10x8. I've googled changing tiff tags but it isn't (yet) understandable.

Happy Ending.
I downloaded Leadtools tiff tag editor, a free utility. I noticed in the Model tag, 272 there were funny looking symbols in the value column, they should be in ASCII FORMAT. In other tiff tags it showed the camera model. I replaced the funny symbols with a 0 and closed the file. I've done this for both files that wouldn't convert and both converted with no error message. I now have the files in Tiff format, the QI edit files have worked and the file name under the thumbnail is in non bold black rather than blue, red, bold etc.
I don't have a clue what caused it but can now sort it out if (when) it occurs again.
Thanks Fred and Mike.