Windows User Needs Help From Mac Users

[Ric Cisson]

This is a new one on me. A friend of mine, recently sent me a jpg file. He says he did a "Save As" in Photoshop Elements 6 (Mac). When I received it and tried to open in Photoshop Elements 7, it did not open but rather opened in Notepad (Windows Utility) as a ".dat" file type. I spoke with him over the phone, he described his saving procedures and everything was fine. So I asked him to re-save and send the file and also send another jpg file. When I received them and attempted to open in PSE7, the same thing happened. I am not sure what is happening, never had any issues between his platform and my platform until now, and have recieved many files successfully in the past.

So, my question to the Mac users amongst us, any ideas as to what is happening? Any recommendations would be appreciated.

Thanks in Advance.

[RonH]

Ric,
Check the extension to make sure it reads .jpg. Also ask him if he is saving as JPEG 2000 (which he should not). He could also trying saving it as a .psd and sending that to you.

[Zeria]

Hi Ric
This may be an answer

"For some strange reason, some email programs automatically change the file extension on email attachments to .DAT. So if the person sent you a picture and now it’s a .DAT file, you first need to save it to your computer and then change the file extension to JPG or GIF or PNG or whatever you think it’s supposed to be. If they sent you a Word document, change it to .DOC, etc."

The above quote comes from this page (http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/how-to-open-dat-files/)

One other thing, if your friend is using Apple's "Mail" program, he should make sure he chose Edit>Attachments>Always Send Windows Friendly Attachments. I know this is a long shot because we are talking about jpegs, but you never know :)

Hope this helps

[frank abramonte]

Ric, take note that RonH is pointing out that perhaps the period is missing before the jpg. It should be file name.jpg

[Ric Cisson]

Thanks Ron and Pete. Pete, I was finally able to open the files by changing the file type, from the same reference you provided, just moments before you responded.

I have left a phone message with my friend and hope to be able to ask some additional questions, as they relate to the suggestions you both have made.

Thanks again, to both of you, for responding. Will keep you informed.

[Ric Cisson]

Frank, thanks, that could very well be. I have been looking through the data fields to see if I recognize anything related to the file format, and it is all a foreign language (take your pick) to me.

[Wendy]

Ric ...

Macs have the option to hide the file extension ... its a Mac thing not an Elements thing.

Could be that the person had this option switched on and when they send by email the system is automatically adding the .dat extension ??

Also when they add the file to the email tell then to check the option "Windows friendly attachment"

Wendy :)
PS ... I won't be around for a few days as we are going away but hope that one of these solves the problem.

[Ric Cisson]

Wendy, thanks for your input. We are going to try some files tomorrow. Just got off the phone a few minutes ago. I am going to send him a couple of files to download and save. Then he will send them back to me and we shall see what we shall see. I suspect that either the dot has mistakenly been deleted before jpg in the file name, or as you say the option to hide file extension has been selected.

Again, thanks for your input.

[Barbara Brundage]

It could also be the fact that a mac file has two parts: a resource fork and a data fork. Windows tends to see these as two separate files, one of which appears as gibberish. The "send windows-friendly attachments" feature in OS X mail takes care of this for you.

Also, it's sometimes necessary to turn on Always insert Attachments at End of Message when sending to windows users because some windows mail programs may truncate attachments if there's message text after them.

[Ric Cisson]

Thanks Barbara for your input. Will look into what you have mentioned. It seems funny, that for the past year, that e-mail communications with attachments between his platform and mine have never been a problem, but just the same, it is worth reviewing.

[Barbara Brundage]

Windows-friendly attachments is on by default in leopard, but perhaps it got unchecked somehow?

[Ric Cisson]

Just want to update this thread. Issue is not resolved. Mac OS X platform, e-mail provider is G-mail. Have attempted sending jpg via Safari and Firefox 3.0. Both recieved as .dat files on Windows platform. I am not sure what we are dealing with here. In the past, I have received his image attachments with no issues. It has been just recently, within these past few days that the issue has cropped up. He had a local Mac technician come out to his house to look at this issue, and the technician blamed Photoshop Elements. Here is the kicker, I was able to change the file type to jpg, open in Photoshop Elements, re-saved as a jpg, and e-mailed file back to him. File opened properly on Mac. Same file was re-saved as jpg, and then attached to new G-mail draft and sent back to me, and it opened okay in Photoshop. So I tried another image file and sent it to him and had him repeat the process we had going and everything was fine. So I had him open and image in Photoshop Elements from his end, do a save as, jpg, and G-mail it back to me. And on my end I got another .dat file type once again. I must be missing something, and it is probably very obvious. I just not sure what I am missing. Any comments, recommendations, references would be appreciated. I did a Google search and thus far have found nothing that appears to be related to this issue. I have also gone through the G-mail forums and cannot find a related issue posted there.

I am about to recommend that he open an Apple mail account and try that.

[ljameso1]

Have him email from iphoto. Just select the image(s) and use the share feature. iphoto will resize/convert and send using his email.

[Ric Cisson]

Linda, thanks, have already tried that and same results both in Safari and Firefox. The funny thing is, once I do get the file open, and save as jpg once again, then send it back to him it is fine. He can send that very same file, I sent back to him, and I can open it with no problem. As I mentioned before, up until last week, we were having no issues back and forth. Suddenly there is an issue.

I looked around the Firefox forums and find a good many issues as to attaching files from a Tiger or Leopard OS. I am somewhat of the opinion that maybe Firefox is the problem, but then, Safari is experiencing the same issue. This is one time, just one time, I am glad I am on a Windows platform;).

[Zeria]

Ric

If he is using Apple's Mail with Gmail, here is a shareware plugin (http://lokiware.info/Mail-Attachments-Iconizer) for e-mail attachments. A trial version is available.
This plugin was recommended in this discussion (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9048587�)...

[Ric Cisson]

Pete, thanks, I am going to refer him to the discussion you linked. I am not going to be able to get with him until Sunday, but I am going to ask him, if he feels comfortable doing so, to give it a try, can't hurt, and it makes some sense to me, have read the discussion.