But after a quick google search on matplotlib + tiff, I'm not convinced that matplotlib can make tiff plots. There is some mention of the GDK backend being able to do it.
One option would be to convert the output with a tool like imagemagick's convert.
(Another option is to wait around here until a real matplotlib expert shows up and proves me wrong ;-)
You can set the figure size if you explicitly create the figure with
plt.figure(figsize=(3,4))
You need to set figure size before calling plt.plot()
To change the format of the saved figure just change the extension in the file name. However, I don't know if any of matplotlib backends support tiff