CS

As useless as it might seem, The XMP file holds vital information about any edits you carry out to the corresponding RAW file and it uses that information to apply your edits to the image when it is opened in Photoshop or saved out as a TIFF or Jpeg. It also contains any Metadata you might save with the image.

In Preferences you have the option of telling the app to save this information in a central cache instead of this sidecar file. You should be aware, however, that if you move a RAW file off to a CD, you need the XMP if the information is to travel with the image.

Another way is to convert your RAW files to DNGs (digital negatives). This universal format contains the metadata within the iamge file and doesn’t require an XMP.

Chris.

PS: By the way. Starting a paragraph with a lower case "i" in these forums causes the paragraph to appear in italics.