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Cayenne1

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 21, 2016
130
119
Knoxville, TN
What is going on with the MacOS handling/reading of files?

I'm editing metadata tags of Nikon NEF (raw) images with the command line tool ExifTool.
ExifTool creates a new image file with the edited tags and changes the original file extension from ".NEF" to ".NEF_original" as a backup.

This backup ".NEF_original" file is not recognized by raw editors such as DXO Photolab or CaptureOne. That action is expected. A separate copy of the original file and the ExifTool edited file are both recognized by the image editors.

The issue comes when renaming the backup extension ".NEF_original" back to ".NEF". It is a valid extension, but the image editors still do not recognize the file. However, if I rename the extension again from ".NEF" to ".nef", or conversely from ".nef" to ".NEF", the image editors will recognize it. - Strange.
  1. What might the MacOS embed in a file that goes beyond the file extension for app recognition?
  2. Does it still retain the old Resource Fork model?
  3. Why might renaming the extension back and forth with the same name fix it?
This issue is significant to users of ExifTool. It can give the appearance of corrupting original images.

Ideas welcome.
(FYI: OS is High Sierra)
 
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