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in what context?

if you downloaded one, double click it. you'll see the contents. probably.

you can then copy what's in it, for example, an application, to the applications folder on your computer, and 'eject' the disk image again. then you can launch the application from the folder on your startup disk.
 
Sometimes I make my own with Disk Utility to store secret information (mainly cherry pie recipes) because they're the easiest way to apply a password to a group of files in OSX I find. :)
 
Disk images are virtual copies of a finished product -- such as the disk image of a DVD, or a piece of software on disk.

I never, ever burn DVDs directly from iDVD, but instead let iDVD create a disk image. Then I can test out the final copy before actually burning to DVD. I open up Toast and ask it to mount the disk image, a "virtual" DVD then appears on the desktop. After playing the disk image on my dvd player, I then ask Toast to simply copy the virtual DVD onto a real DVD-R.
 
metalgearmac said:
What do you do with disk images?

Run emulators from them, for one thing! Got System 1, 2, 3, 4.0, 4.1, 6.0.5, 6.0.8, 7.0.1, 7.5, all for vMac; a larger 7.0.1 and 7.5.5 for Basilisk II; an 8.6 for SheepShaver.

Oh, and a 9.2.2 for Classic! (Yes, you can run the Classic environment from a diskimage, and that makes it very portable from one Mac to another. Never futz with reinstalling MacOS 9 for Classic again!)
 
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