Converting a 16 bit tiff file to something viewable online?

Question

I need to take a 16 bit .tiff file and make it viewable on my website. To even view .tiff files many browsers require plugins. I found a software that could convert them to .jpg files but I was wondering if there is a way to do this independently. I am making my website using Ruby on Rails. I must be able to do the conversion from the website because the whole point of the website is to upload large folders of .tiff files and display them in an online slideshow.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Answer 1

imagemagick

Answer 2

Doug is right, imagemagick is probably your best bet. Once installed, you can use the command-line interface: convert input.tiff output.jpg. If you happen to be using OS X, you could also use sips, e.g. sips -s format jpeg photo1.tiff --out photo1.jpg