For some reason, zbrush can’t load tif files generated by the gimp.
Other programs like windows explorer and office can read them.
Attached is an example file.
ZBrush requires a very specific variant of the TIFF format. Unfortunately, there are a great many variations that are possible with this format, and so it’s not recommended to use it when you’re planning to import into ZBrush.
If exporting a 16 or 32 bit image from ZBrush, use TIFF. If you need to import into ZBrush, use PSD or BMP.
thanks for the notice…
So what programs support the particular .tif variant than can be imported and used by ZB2?
Photoshop is industry standard, ans Zmapper links to it.
Photoshop can read ZBrush-created TIFF files, but cannot export them in a way that ZBrush recognizes.
Simply use TIFF when exporting alphas from ZBrush and use PSD when importing them into ZBrush.
ok Aurik will do!
…so the zb2 exported .tif can be opened in photoshop, but when saved,
is converted to a different .tiff format?
Ya 
thats what he meant
Just wondering if anyone has ever listed off the specific requirements.
Reason is, I can always just use the ImageMagick convert command line util to “fix” the TIFFs, if I know what the settings are.
(For anyone interested: www.imagemagick.org – freeware, sorta like having a Photoshop Command Line mode… will not read zbr files, though if someone gave the developers a spec it might end up doing so.)
ZBrush tifs use a minimum of tags. I’ve not investigated why it can’t load tifs from Photoshop.
Here’s the output from a typical ZB tif opened in the
Tiff Tag viewer
SubFileType (1 Long): Zero
ImageWidth (1 Short): 256
ImageLength (1 Short): 256
BitsPerSample (1 Short): 16
Compression (1 Short): Uncompressed
Photometric (1 Short): MinIsBlack
StripOffsets (1 Long): 198
SamplesPerPixel (1 Short): 1
RowsPerStrip (1 Short): 256
StripByteCounts (1 Long): 131072
XResolution (1 Rational): 72
YResolution (1 Rational): 72
PlanarConfig (1 Short): Contig
ResolutionUnit (1 Short): Inch