custom file extension, can it be done?

[Tim]

does anybody know how a custom file extension can be created? We would like to create a custom file extension to out compressed tiff and eps files so we can differentiate the files from their uncompressed counterpart. This way we can avoid data loss in a compressed image if it needs to be retouched. thanks for the help

[duck]

Why not just a add a couple of letters before the extension?
I used to do this on all images that I did any work on. I would leave the original file as is, and any image I worked on - color corrections, etc I would add "rt" to the end of the file name so I would know it's the "retouched" image.
Maybe you could just add a "C" or "CM" or something:
imagenameCM.tiff
Then you know that this file is the compressed version.

[nlynx76]

I do what duck said. Or you can give it a new dummy extension - let's say you just scanned something as a TIF image and want to keep the original scan, just copy the file and give it a new extension like ".scantif". There's no such extension, so it makes the file unaccessible by the PC until the extension gets changed back to .tif, but it's pretty safe in the meantime. *shrug*

[Sparky]

Ditto on Duck. We've developed an entire set of file naming protocol to follow when doing any work on images. if an alteration is done to a document then a ".r" is added just prior to the extension, this allows to do numerous corrections and just update the revision number .r1, .r2, .r3 etc. try to come up with a set of fixed short names for certain states of a file like "ghst" for a "ghosted image", sm for small, lg for large, .ds for drop shadow etc. as you do your work and the workflow dictates you get used to naming files in this manner so that anyone can instantly tell what version or what was done to it.
have fun.