topic Re: TIFF to MRF in ArcGIS Pro Questions

TIFF to MRF

Y_Chau — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 05:23:03 GMT

I converted a 5cm drone image to MRF with LERC compression. Original is TIFF with JPEG compression. Size has inflated 3 times. Is this normal? What is the best format to keep the size down and get good performance in the web?

Re: TIFF to MRF

SimonSchütte_ct — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 12:44:17 GMT

You may want to take a look at Cloud Optimized TIFF, but it depends on your specific use case.

GitHub - Esri/OptimizeRasters: OptimizeRasters is a set of tools for converting raster data to optimized Tiled TIF or MRF files, moving data to cloud storage, and creating Raster Proxies.

OptimizeRasters/Documentation/OptimizeRasters_UserDoc.pdf at master · Esri/OptimizeRasters · GitHub (PDF with good information on the different formats)

Re: TIFF to MRF

Y_Chau — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 05:10:02 GMT

Hi @SimonSchütte_ct

Converting to CRF with LERC inflates the images even more. Converting to CRF with JPEG is possible only if I remove the alpha band (RGB). This adds opaque nodata areas. I don't understand how the original images have 4 bands and still use JPEG compression.

Any thoughts?

YC

Re: TIFF to MRF

SimonSchütte_ct — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 08:18:09 GMT

JPEG is a lossy image compression designed specifically for photographic imagery
LERC can be lossy, it generally does not compress natural-color imagery as efficiently as JPEG.

To improve performance, CRF will create internal tiles, adding to image size.

Yes, JPEG does not support alpha bands.

The TIFF does compress the RGB using JPEG compression and has an additional channel for alpha.
There are different flavours of TIFF.

For best performance use Mosaic Dataset with MRF in ArcGIS Pro or when deploying to ArcGIS Image Server.
If you don´t have Image Server or want to directly stream the data from a network source, try Cloud Optimized GeoTIF and MRF proxys.

Re: TIFF to MRF

Y_Chau — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 13:51:59 GMT

In my tests CRF with JPEG compression turned out to be the most compact. I tried other combinations like MRF / COG with ZSTD / LERC / Deflate / QB3. All inflate the size way more than the original images.

Re: TIFF to MRF

SimonSchütte_ct — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 09:56:19 GMT

There is no universally optimal file format. The appropriate choice depends on the specific requirements of your application, workflow, and use case, and may vary accordingly. If CRF with JPEG works best for your needs, then it is the right format for you.