[Image-SIG] libtiff plugin for PIL

[Scott Johnston]

A quick deja search of "PIL libtiff" reveals that
in comp.lang.python on 1998/08/27, Fredrik mentioned:

  "We're working on an (optional) libtiff plugin for PIL,
  but there's no set date when that will be available."

Has any further work gone into this? My use of PIL has been severely
limited by its inability to handle RGBA tiff files.
(I can convert to png, or split them into four single channel images
prior to import, but this is messy.)

Also, has any thought been given to supporting 16-bpp data?
I currently filter my data into Numeric but would love
to have the best of both worlds.