The issue

A collection of digitized images resulted in TIFF files. Unfortunately these files rendered incorrectly or could not be rendered at all. Various checking tools like JHOVE did not identify the files as corrupted.

Example (from Source)

Description

The images were digitized in grey scale at a bit depth of 8 bits per sample. However, the BitsPerSample header tag of these files had an incorrect value of 16 bits per sample. This information is needed by the rendering tool to correctly render the image. So the rendering tool got wrong information, acted accordingly to this information and was not able to render the image correctly.

Can we prevent this?

One of the lessons learnt, also mentioned in the power point file (see reference below) , is that digitized material should undergo a quality control check to verify that what was delivered, was also expected. Not always digitization firms offer the material according to the specifications. Trust but verify.

Source

An extensive description can be found here , including how the cause was detected and how they repaired the files.