'Hidden' jpegs when burning a cd in OSX

bognor_regis · Oct 5, 2006

Hi

I'm a newbie to the forum, so please forgive me if this question has been asked before.

I'm using Photoshop CS2, and doing the same tasks on both a Powerbook (OSX) and on a PC (Windows XP).

A simple task: I am saving jpegs into a folder, inserting a blank cd, dragging the jpegs to the cd folder, then clicking Burn. (No special cd burning software; I don't see the need, as both OSX and XP do just fine). The result is a photo cd which can be viewed on any Mac, any PC, or any DVD player with jpeg capabilities.

So what is the problem? Well, none that I was aware of, until I bought a new all-singing all-dancing DVD player/recorder. Let's say I put 10 jpegs onto a cd. Mac Finder shows 10 files. Windows Explorer shows 10 files. All my old DVD players show 10 files. The new DVD player shows 20 files! Each filename is duplicated, and the first of each pair shows "unsupported file format" instead of the image.

No other device would show these 'hidden' files, until I bought a Lacie external hard drive. If I make a cd image by draging the 10 jpegs from the Mac hard drive to the Lacie, the Lacie shows 20 files (both in Mac Finder and Windows Explorer). The filenames arent exactly duplicated this time - the extra files are prefixed with ._ (i.e. "image1.jpg" becomes "._image1.jpg")

What is going on here? Please note that only cds burnt using OSX do this; When I burn cds in exactly the same way using XP I get the expected number of files.

corysw · Oct 5, 2006

Get Toast.

NanoBite · Oct 5, 2006

bognor_regis said:
Hi

I'm a newbie to the forum, so please forgive me if this question has been asked before.

I'm using Photoshop CS2, and doing the same tasks on both a Powerbook (OSX) and on a PC (Windows XP).

A simple task: I am saving jpegs into a folder, inserting a blank cd, dragging the jpegs to the cd folder, then clicking Burn. (No special cd burning software; I don't see the need, as both OSX and XP do just fine). The result is a photo cd which can be viewed on any Mac, any PC, or any DVD player with jpeg capabilities.

So what is the problem? Well, none that I was aware of, until I bought a new all-singing all-dancing DVD player/recorder. Let's say I put 10 jpegs onto a cd. Mac Finder shows 10 files. Windows Explorer shows 10 files. All my old DVD players show 10 files. The new DVD player shows 20 files! Each filename is duplicated, and the first of each pair shows "unsupported file format" instead of the image.

No other device would show these 'hidden' files, until I bought a Lacie external hard drive. If I make a cd image by draging the 10 jpegs from the Mac hard drive to the Lacie, the Lacie shows 20 files (both in Mac Finder and Windows Explorer). The filenames arent exactly duplicated this time - the extra files are prefixed with ._ (i.e. "image1.jpg" becomes "._image1.jpg")

What is going on here? Please note that only cds burnt using OSX do this; When I burn cds in exactly the same way using XP I get the expected number of files.

G'day bognor_regis,

I'm clutching at straws here but isn't this a case of hide the hidden files again?

If you opened Terminal and typed [or copied & pasted]888:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE

killall Finder

This should hide the files for you.

Aptmunich · Oct 5, 2006

Apple's hfs+ file system includes certain hidden files to store things such as viewing preferences.

So you'll end up with a .ds_store folder and hidden ._copies of your files on systems that don't hide the hidden data.

There are some clean up tools available though to take care of this for you.

bognor_regis · Oct 5, 2006

corysw said:
Get Toast.

I'm sorry if I didn't express my question clearly enough. I'm not just looking for a solution to the problem; I'm trying to understand the underlying cause.

What is generating these hidden files? Is it Photoshop? Bridge? OSX?

And why doesn't Finder or Windows Explorer show them? Explorer has an option to 'Show Hidden Files' (I expect Finder has something similar), but even with this selected, they do not show.

The solution to the problem is simple (and much cheaper than buying Toast): I can just burn my cds from PC. But I thought that Macs were at least as good as, if not better than, PCs, so do I really have to buy extra software for OSX to work as well as XP does?

Pulse-8: I think you are solving my problem in reverse. I don't want to hide (or indeed) show the files - I want to prevent them being generated. Remember, if they are there, my DVD player will show them, regardless of whether Finder does or not.

cradom · Oct 5, 2006

The problem is when burning on the PC it burns as a PC CD...when burning on a Mac, and it's readable on the PC, it's actually burned as a hybrid cd. it has the files on there twice, in PC format and in Mac format. Some DVD players cant support the Mac part of the cd but still show the filenames.

If I burn a cd in Mac format only, the files show but aren't readable on my DVD player.

thermidor · Oct 5, 2006

My interpretation is that the files beginning with . are the thumbnails OS X generates. Check the file size - are they much smaller than the originals?

cazabam · Oct 5, 2006

The ._ files are actually resource forks. They contain the HFS+ file metadata that UFS or ISO9660 (the CD file systems) cannot store normally. If OS X sees one of these files when copying the file back to an HFS+ volume it will reintegrate the data.

As for how to remove them ... I have no idea. I shall have a play later - it may be possible to set the CD image to ignore resource forks.

bognor_regis · Oct 7, 2006

Thanks Aptmunich for alerting me to the .ds_store thing, which certainly seems to be an issue I need to be aware of when burning cds on a Mac for use on a PC. It isn't my immediate problem, though - stray files I can live with (for now), because DVD players seem to ignore anything which they can't play, but ._image.jpg files are worse because they pretend to be jpegs, and some DVD players think they ought to be able to play them.

I think thermidor may have the answer. The ._image.jpg files only coincide with files which have a thumbnail image in finder, which are files I have shot in raw, opened in Photoshop, then saved as jpegs. All other jpeg files (e.g. if I shoot i jpeg on the camera, then transfer these files to Mac, but never open them), have a generic jpeg icon in Finder, and no thumbnail.

So the solution seems to be (can it really be this simple?), to click View, then un-check Icons. This eliminates both the thumbnails and the generic .jpeg icon and makes Finder harder to use, but if the thumbnails don't get generated, then neither do the ._image.jpg files.

I will have to test this further, but so far it seems to work.

Aptmunich · Oct 8, 2006

Good thinking bognor_regis!

Let us know if that works...

If it doesn't, try using this free burning app (http://burn-osx.sourceforge.net/) to burn the discs instead.

It lets you burn various data disc formats, and I imagine they might let you see and remove and resource fork files.

'Hidden' jpegs when burning a cd in OSX

bognor_regis

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corysw

NanoBite

Aptmunich

bognor_regis

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cradom

thermidor

cazabam

bognor_regis

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Aptmunich

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