Double images in photo kiosks

GB
Posted By
Guy Burns
Feb 1, 2009
Views
639
Replies
13
Status
Closed
When I take my USB stick to a photo kiosk (Kodak, Fuji) and try and select the images I want, everytime I am presented with two of every image. Let us assume I only have one image on the stick called ZZZZ. I will be presented with two images in the photo kiosk: ZZZZ and _ZZZZ, the latter, if I accidentally select it for printing, will print very badly with extreme pixellation, almost as if the preview image is being used.

I can handle the workaround myself, but other people come to me for burning images to CD, and sometimes they come back and say the images printed badly. i.e they selected the wrong image in the photo kiosk. I’m giving myself a bad name!

My question is: why do I get two images coming up, and is it possible, by changing some preference or setting within PS, to get rid of the problem image?
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T
T._Schmidt
Feb 1, 2009
Is it a Mac-to-PC problem? For me the PC always shows a ".file.jpg" for every "file.jpg". But that’s not the previews and can’t be printed. How large are these _files?
NK
Neil_Keller
Feb 1, 2009
Guy,

My question is: why do I get two images coming up, and is it possible, by changing some preference or setting within PS, to get rid of the problem image?

This sounds like it may be an OS interface issue, not a Photoshop issue. That doesn’t make it any less a real problem. But I don’t see any Photoshop setting that would stop the duplication.

How are the USB memory and CDs formated? Maybe there’s a clue there.

Neil
GB
Guy Burns
Feb 1, 2009
Thanks for the responses. In answer:

1. It might be a Mac to PC problem, but I haven’t tried that. It is a Mac to Photo Kiosk problem. I’ll try taking the stick to a friend’s PC or use the photo store’s PC.

2. These extra files can definitely be printed. I’ve seen the results, and the Photo Kiosk warns you that they are below acceptable resolution — but still my friends have printed them accidentally.

3. The USB stick is formatted (according to Disk Utility) as MS-DOS File System (FAT 16).

To me it seems that the Photo Kiosk is reading the internal preview image. Maybe I should try and turn off preview image.
R
Ram
Feb 1, 2009
Windoze boxes often interpret the resource fork of a Mac file as a separate file.
NK
Neil_Keller
Feb 2, 2009
I wonder if these are preview images. But in thinking this through, on at least one occasion, I recall a Windows recipient asking me about an "extra" file I had included in a file transmission.

Neil
AS
Ann_Shelbourne
Feb 2, 2009
I have heard the same thing too from Windows people. The small files may just be a separate thumbnail or screen icon?

The best thing would be to instruct the recipients to print ONLY the larger version of the two files.

If you burn to a CD, do they complain about getting double images?
GB
Guy Burns
Feb 2, 2009
In Preferences I’ve just selected Image Previews > Never Save, and I’m now off to the Photo Kiosk. I’ll let you know what happens.
GB
Guy Burns
Feb 2, 2009
I took in my USB stick this afternoon and thought I might come up with something conclusive. However, my intention was thrawted by another daft aspect of Fuji Photo Kiosks. I had only a dozen or so images, all with Preview turned off, but the Photo Kiosk a minute or so to load several hundred images. It was rounding up all the images in the trash.

I brought this up with the attendent and he told the story of person turning up with an 8GB stick and a few dozen images to print, only to find thousands of old images coming up from the trash. There is no solution in that case but to go home and empty the trash (unless the attendant lets you plug in your USB stick to his computer).

In summary, I did not see any sus files associated with the images I wanted to print, so maybe these kiosks are reading the preview as separate images. But it was hard to tell because there were so many images on the kiosk.

My next step is to go back with a completely blank USB stick, except for two images: one with Preview on and one with Preview off. And I’ll do the same with a CDRW.

I’m nail this problem yet.
JJ
Jim_Jordan
Feb 2, 2009
Windoze boxes often interpret the resource fork of a Mac file as a separate file.

That’s a bit backwards. Mac writes the double file so it can be read back to Mac from a non-HFS disk.

<http://support.apple.com/kb/TA20578>
O
OldBob
Feb 2, 2009
Tahnk you Mr. Jordan. I’ve wondered for a long time what caused those extra "_" files.
JJ
Jim_Jordan
Feb 2, 2009
OSX has been killing off the traditional resource/data forks in a single file that we used up to OS9 so we need to get away from thinking that data and resource forks are packed in one file. ‘Windoze’, Windows, and Mac interpret the resource and data forks of a Mac file as separate files because they are separate files. If you switch OSX’s Finder to display all files, you will see these ._ files all over your internal HFS drive.

If you want to clean them up, just enable Finder’s file visibility and delete them from the DOS disk. You can also use an app like this <http://www.zeroonetwenty.com/blueharvest/>.
AN
Alan_Nicol
Mar 24, 2009
Thanks everyone.

This solves the problem – so easy

<http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/26028>
GB
Guy Burns
Mar 24, 2009
Just to confirm what gets rid of those double-images in a photo kiosk, this is what I do now before I take files on a USB stick for printing:

1. In Photoshop I go to Preferences > File Handling > Image Preview > NEVER SAVE.

2. Empty trash on the USB stick.

3. Change Image Preview back to what it was originally.

It’s a pain to remember to do it each time, but it works.

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