Originally created by the company Aldus for use with what was then called `` desktop publishing , '' TIFF is a popular format for color and black and white images . The TIFF format is widely supported by image-manipulation applications , by publishing and page layout applications , by scanning , faxing , word processing , optical character recognition and other applications . Originally created by the company Aldus for use with what was then called `` desktop publishing '' , the TIFF format is widely supported by image-manipulation applications , by publishing and page layout applications , by scanning , faxing , word processing , optical character recognition and other applications .