Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Colour Management => Topic started by: William Walker on November 28, 2009, 02:13:43 am
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I have been taking photographs for more than thirty years now, although, to be honest, I have only become passionate about photography since the advent of digital and the internet. I have had my Pentax K10D now for a few years, taken many pictures and spent many happy hours on the computer working with those pictures.
I read somewhere that the print is the final step (and also to a large degree – the point) of taking a picture.
With this in mind I have spent the last year or so doing homework on printing and printers and preparing myself for this quest. I started off by upgrading my computer and splashed out on the new (early 2009), - now old – Imac 24”. Beautiful! Then I read about the issues with the screen luminance and thought perhaps I had rushed into things. No matter, onwards I went.
I next upgraded to Snow Leopard when that came out. In the printer department, I narrowed the choice down to Epson and was perfectly positioned to buy the new 3880 as it came out. Beautiful! Now to push the learning up a notch or two – I downloaded “from Print to Camera” and spent six or seven wonderful hours in awe of Jeff Schewe and quickly became his number one fan. Then I started spending far too much time on this forum and soon learned that there was a lot of politics flying around – especially where my new hero was concerned! Super! (He is still my hero – even after the recent “Re – A Call for Support” postings!) To round this exercise off I opted for the Colormunki Photo – and read about its issues too. Somehow, it seems, I brewed up the perfect storm!
Now, in the “Camera to Print” video, I gathered that setting up this whole glorious procedure could be somewhat frustrating – making sure this was set that way and that was set this way, checking for this, re-setting that - and so on. However, I did not realise the scale of the exercise. (Don’t you find that they always leave one or two vital clues for you to discover all on your own?) My dumbest mistake – after one or two hours of calibrating, profiling, soft-proofing and heaven knows what else - was forgetting to open the front flap to let the bloody picture out!
And so to the point of everything – the print. It came out looking nothing like the soft-proof.
It is now two days later and, last night, something finally came out in a rough likeness to what was on the screen. Things are (literally and figuratively) still a bit dark – but there was enough in that last print to give me hope. (Same as golf – there is always that one shot that you play that makes you come back and play again!)
It seems strange to me that we can put a man on the moon with less computing power than a calculator, we can sequence the human genome in less than a month, and yet, we cannot push one button on the computer and what appears on the screen comes out of the printer! Really, it can’t be that difficult, can it?
Finally, I understand that these things take time and one day I will look back on all of this with a smile.
One thing is true: if the print is the reason for taking the picture, then I have learned that printing pictures will change the way I take them. In a way it takes you back to using film because to print costs money, so it better be right! If you are going to go the trouble of printing a picture (and hanging it up) it has to be good in all photographic senses of the word, technically and aesthetically.
A whole new adventure awaits me!
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I remember well when I first heard the innocent-sounding phrase "Color management" several years ago. How can two little words inflict so much pain?
It is indeed a long, slow learning curve.
As for Schewe: I once felt a little bruised by one of his comments, but the wealth of stuff I have learned from him over the years is just enormous. He is indeed one of my heroes, too. To keep from feeling too put off by some of his postings it helps to read what he says carefully. If he calls you "Bud," don't read too much into it.
Good luck wrestling with the Color Management dragon!
Eric
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And so to the point of everything – the print. It came out looking nothing like the soft-proof.
It is now two days later and, last night, something finally came out in a rough likeness to what was on the screen. Things are (literally and figuratively) still a bit dark – but there was enough in that last print to give me hope. (Same as golf – there is always that one shot that you play that makes you come back and play again!)
Hay, don't feel bad, even I screwed up the other day, after profiling a new paper and setting up prints in Indesign I sent it to print and forgot to set the new paper/printer profile. After 20 years of setting up print jobs on about every kind of medium I still make mistakes somethings. Maybe I should not be so hard on Adobe, Apple and the printer manufacture but I see where it can really make it frustrating on those without a full understanding of CM to not know when it is not their fault and go blindly looking for solutions.
The best thing you can do though is download a good known reference file to print or view on screen so that you always have an example of what is correct (photo wise) so you can know if it is monitor calibration and profile, or printer driver settings, application print settings or even a bad profile that are causing you to get incorrect colors.
Doyle
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[quote name='DYP' date='Nov 28 2009, 02:11 PM' post='328347']
Hay, don't feel bad, even I screwed up the other day, after profiling a new paper and setting up prints in Indesign I sent it to print and forgot to set the new paper/printer profile. After 20 years of setting up print jobs on about every kind of medium I still make mistakes somethings. Maybe I should not be so hard on Adobe, Apple and the printer manufacture but I see where it can really make it frustrating on those without a full understanding of CM to not know when it is not their fault and go blindly looking for solutions.
The best thing you can do though is download a good known reference file to print or view on screen so that you always have an example of what is correct (photo wise) so you can know if it is monitor calibration and profile, or printer driver settings, application print settings or even a bad profile that are causing you to get incorrect colors.
Doyle
[The best thing you can do though is download a good known reference file to print or view on screen so that you always have an example of what is correct (photo wise) so you can know if it is monitor calibration and profile, or printer driver settings, application print settings or even a bad profile that are causing you to get incorrect colors.]
Thanks for that - I printed again this afternoon and still there are problems with the colour not matching - what reference would you suggest?
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You *need* a colorchecker (the big one) and a colorchecker image. That allows a you to figure out how good your monitor profile and monitor quality is, and do a final check of your print profiles.
Colorchecker images can be eownloaded off Bruce Lindbloom's site: http://www.brucelindbloom.com/ (http://www.brucelindbloom.com/)
Colorchecker tests MUST (I repeat MUST) be printed with relative colorimetric or perceptual intent. Absolute won't work.
You also can use the Thomas Holm test image: http://www.ekdahl.org/kurs/SpyderColorvisi...l_testimage.htm (http://www.ekdahl.org/kurs/SpyderColorvision/pixl_testimage.htm) to test your profile quality.
I will make a free printer profile for anyone who asks nicely. Donations are encouraged, though
Edmund
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It seems strange to me that we can put a man on the moon with less computing power than a calculator, we can sequence the human genome in less than a month, and yet, we cannot push one button on the computer and what appears on the screen comes out of the printer! Really, it can’t be that difficult, can it?
Color science is a lot harder that rocket science...with rocket science, you either land on your target or you are dead. Pretty high standards when missing costs you your life...with color science, it's _ALL_ about coming close to a match knowing it'll never match exactly...with regards to the human genom, sorry, can't really comment on that–I stayed away from bio science and stuck with physics and chemestry :~)
When I first started trying to do "color management" it was well before the term "Color Management" became so popular. The first attempt I made using a program called EFI Color Cachet actually worked surprisingly well way back in 1994/1995 time frame.
The scheme back then was to provide reference images printed in CMYK, the CMYK images, a CMYK setup file (before ICC profiles) and a method of wanking your monitor to have the CMYK image file match the CMYK output. You knew what the CMYK was SUPPOSED to look like so all you needed to do was twiddle the display controls till you got it to look "similar".
As primitive as this sounds, for CMYK output, it actually worked really well. This was back in the Photoshop 2.5 and 3 time frame.
Then Adobe decided to take a more draconian approach with Photoshop 5 and force people into "proper" color management practices...course, they kinda screwed the pootchie cause they bowed to MSFT and made the default color space in Photoshop be sRGB. Hence the beginning of the sRGB bullsyte... It's actually called sRGB because the guy who help formulate and push it as a standard was named Michael Stokes. First when he worked at HP then later at MSFT. Course, he's done his "damage" and now he's working at MSFT's computerized healthcare initiative (he gave up on color management :~)
At this point in time, color management can work and work very well. Soft proofing allows very accurate control over final output. The only problem is that a change in any of the overall color management system such as an OS update, a print driver update (or lack of an update), an application update or a color management application update can cause a total meltdown.
Case in point, it's really hard to print out a profile target through Photoshop CS4 using Leopard or Snow Leopard and recent Epson printers...the whole color management pipeline relating to intentionally untagged color targets is broken.
I will say there is light at the end of the tunnel (and hopefully it won't be a friggin' train heading at ya). Once you get things to actually work and understand how to use it, the potential quality of your color output can go way up...at least until some component gets updated and breaks the system :~(
Then I started spending far too much time on this forum and soon learned that there was a lot of politics flying around – especially where my new hero was concerned!
Well, it's never been a goal of mine to be anybody's hero...my main goal is to cut through all the PC crap and say what I think. Sometimes that offends some people with particularly thin skins or people who "think" they understand what I've written but somehow completely fail to comprehend the content. English is not my first language, I speak American which my Brit writing buddy Martin Evening likes to say "only vaguely resembles the Queen's English"...
The only sad thing about this sort of forum overreaction is that it tends to over-enforce a falsely civilized, politically correct mentality which in addition to causing a vanilla sort of behavior actually cuts down on the potential value of the content.
But have no fear...(unless ya wanna take me on in a debate), I don't think I'll be changing. So, all those small-minded, overly sensitive individuals that would rather have the forum take on a PG Rated "Disneyland" sort of environment may need to cut down on their caffeine or change their meds or find other softer and friendlier places to hang out.
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Thanks eronald and Jeff for the replies - its late in my neck of the woods so will continue tomorrow.
Jeff, at this stage my soft-proof and the print are not that close on most of the trials, although I've just printed my best "match" so far. I am beginning to realise that it is unrealistic to expect it to be exact, and, experience, trial and error and the odd bit of assistance from you guys will get me (and others) on my way!
Thanks again!
Cheers!
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Thanks eronald and Jeff for the replies - its late in my neck of the woods so will continue tomorrow.
Jeff, at this stage my soft-proof and the print are not that close on most of the trials, although I've just printed my best "match" so far. I am beginning to realise that it is unrealistic to expect it to be exact, and, experience, trial and error and the odd bit of assistance from you guys will get me (and others) on my way!
Thanks again!
Cheers!
Yes, color management is horrible. Yes, it's been built so vendors can finger-point and it never (almost never) works. Yes, Jeff Schewe will save the world.
And now, let me outline how everybody here can get their color management to just work:
1. Get a Mac. Even an iMac or laptop is usually decently usable when it gets delivered.
2. Set your color working space in Photoshop (Shift Command K) to sRGB.
3. Use vendor-supplied profiles and settings for your media.
4. Get a decent software calibration package. I recommend Basiccolor Display or ColorEyes Display. These packages have demos anyway.
Follow 123(4), and glance at whatever tutorial you feel like, and your prints should roughly match the screen. If *you* think you can come into color management and make a custom profile with Snow Leopard, or survive the issues created by giving ProphotoRGB files to third parties, then you need your head checked. Standardize on sRGB and things will just work, and neither labs nor publications will foobar your files.. Leave anything more complex to the Jeff Schewes of this world.
I've never seen a real-world scenario where sRGB was a genuine problem; I bet I could even print and retouch all of Michael's work in sRGB and he would be incapable of seeing the difference. He's a middle-aged guy - guys have lousy color vision compâred to your average female fashion magazine intern.
Edmund
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Yes, color management is horrible. Yes, it's been built so vendors can finger-point and it never (almost never) works. Yes, Jeff Schewe will save the world.
And now, let me outline how everybody here can get their color management to just work:
1. Get a Mac. Even an iMac or laptop is usually decently usable when it gets delivered.
2. Set your color working space in Photoshop (Shift Command K) to sRGB.
3. Use vendor-supplied profiles and settings for your media.
4. Get a decent software calibration package. I recommend Basiccolor Display or ColorEyes Display. These packages have demos anyway.
Follow 123(4), and glance at whatever tutorial you feel like, and your prints should roughly match the screen. If *you* think you can come into color management and make a custom profile with Snow Leopard, or survive the issues created by giving ProphotoRGB files to third parties, then you need your head checked. Standardize on sRGB and things will just work, and neither labs nor publications will foobar your files.. Leave anything more complex to the Jeff Schewes of this world.
I've never seen a real-world scenario where sRGB was a genuine problem; I bet I could even print and retouch all of Michael's work in sRGB and he would be incapable of seeing the difference. He's a middle-aged guy - guys have lousy color vision compâred to your average female fashion magazine intern.
Edmund
You forgot to add. Stay away from software that uses Apples new printing path. That includes LR and PSCS4. This is unless you're sure that you have a printer driver that can correctly print using the new printing path.
And second. Stay away from all new updates in case something has changed to once again cause double profiling. Witness LR3 Beta.
Doyle
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Standardize on sRGB and things will just work, and neither labs nor publications will foobar your files..
Well, that's the MSFT way...and if you do that you are leaving a lot of capture color and thus potentially image quality on the table...
The ProPhoto RGB color space is only a problem to people who don't know how to set up their Photoshop Color Setting policies to "Preserve Embedded Profiles". Which has been the Photoshop default since CS (I think the "North American General Purpose was intro'ed in CS but it could have been CS2).
Then the only question is whether or not you want to use PP RGB as the backbone color space in Photoshop. Many times I'll have my RGB working space set to sRGB particularly if I've doing a lot of book work and need to work with screenshots. Oh, I'll still open images through Camera Raw as PP RGB images in 16 bit...tat is my default for photographic images while working in Photoshop.
I'll also cheerfully suggest you never give ProPhoto RGB files to anybody else. Clients, printers, photo labs, etc. will rarely know what they are doing so at the biggest, I'll give out Adobe RGB or even sRGB if they sound particularly stupid.
For CMYK, going from ProPhoto RGB to CMYK vs. sRGB to CMYK, sorry, big difference and sRGB is substantially inferior in a large number of colors in the CMYK gamut. sRGB is inferior in cyans and blues/greens where it's really tough to get textural detail in those saturated colors. Oddly, it's red and red yellow/orange where sRGB really suffers in conversion from sRGB > CMYK...images whose colors blockup from sRGB maintain far better color gradations coming from PP RGB.
So, if you want the best working space for your hard worked master images that will future proof them for ever expanding gamuts of output color, going sRGB would be very short sighted and very limiting. Which, ironically is one of the big reasons that many photo labs demand sRGB...because they are very short sighted and they want to limit photographers' expectations...
As far as the rest of the 1-4 list...I would also take look at #1. While I agree and use Macs, it's been my experience that in the last few years, Apple (read Steve Jobs and his underlings) have pretty much marginalized ColorSync down to the point where instead of just making things work, it tends to get into everybody's way. The intentionally untagged profile target is just the more recent and obvious issues...print out of Windows is in many respects, easier and less prone to system problems than recent Mac OSs.
The single biggest mountain to climb relating to color management and Photoshop is the creation and proper use of high quality (and very accurate) display profiles. I have no particular problem with any of the hardware/software options out there but I tend to seriously suggest the NEC line of wide gamut display such as the 3090WQXi along with the NEC software and a puck suitable for wide gamut displays...
Sadly, it's the display where many photographers tend to "cheap out" and get lower end solutions that can cause all sorts of problems particularly related to display output. Anybody who complains about "dark prints" is prolly not deploying their display and display color management correctly.
Then, of course, you have the display environment...I have, for a long time, built an optimum imaging environment with reduced brightness, indirect environmental lighting with a D50 white point and no reflections ever on the display screens...I also have a D50 GTI viewing booth as well as a lamp with Solux bulbs and another lamp with straight 3000K lighting. All of which are used for proper viewing and print evaluation...
Hey,it could be worse...it could still be 1995 when none of this stuff worked :~)
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2. Set your color working space in Photoshop (Shift Command K) to sRGB.
Since nearly every current device exceeds the gamut of sRGB (cameras, displays, and printers) I guess you can have the attitude of just trying to squish everything down to a lowest common denominator. To me this doesn't sound like color management, its just managing output by limitation ... make sure you can't exceed the gamut of any device by using sRGB ... then everything will "match". Of course, it also means you compromise much of the potential of many images.
Using ProPhotoRGB isn't that challenging. All ProPhoto does is make sure you have a big enough "bucket" to hold all of your data ... your working space itself won't constantly clip your data as you work on an image. The entire premise of good color management is that because we interpret everything we see into something that we expect to see, devices of various capabilities can still appear visually very similar. It isn't that critical that your display can't show a color that your printer can print, because the color management system remaps the colors you see on your display to simulate the relationship of the colors. You never see any color in the working space. Sure it may not be a "perfect" match, but then again matching a reflective print against a transmissive display is never going to be perfect. But it works pretty well.
I just installed a 9900 for a friend and he called and said he was disappointed he couldn't see much difference between the prints from his 9600. The differences should be obvious. I then discovered he was printing from his standard work files ... which are sRGB. I told him to pick a couple of his favorites, find the raws, and rework them using ProPhotoRGB, then compare them. Got an email a couple of days later saying his stuff is looking fantastic. Had he used ProPhoto to start with, his 9600 images would have looked fine, and reprinting them with the 9900 wouldn't have required any extra work.
Soft-proofing on the other hand is more challenging, especially when printing with MK ink, and using sRGB won't help with that much. I personally believe it takes practice and skill to "interpret" the soft proof information. I've watched Jeff demonstrate this at least half a dozen times, and I still can't come close to duplicating what he does. I've seen others that have a real knack with this as well, but I'm a little bit like Stephen Johnson ... just test it. I guess too many years with an enlarger and printing test strips have created a habit that is tough to break. Fortunately with PK ink and the newer papers, the results are pretty good most of the time.
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Well, that's the MSFT way...and if you do that you are leaving a lot of capture color and thus potentially image quality on the table...
True, you have less gamut. However you do get decent predictable color. And if you use labs or send images in for publication getting decent color reliably is a definite plus. Anything other than sRGB is, to use the words of a knowledgeable but cantankerous individual we all love, a big "Hurt Me" Button.
I'll also cheerfully suggest you never give ProPhoto RGB files to anybody else. Clients, printers, photo labs, etc. will rarely know what they are doing so at the biggest, I'll give out Adobe RGB or even sRGB if they sound particularly stupid.
And I'm just taking a shortcut and adding most photographers here to your list of computer challenged individuals. Why assume a photographer who is a "greenhorn" will know more about computers than a printer or a lab whose livelihood had involved files for over ten years, and who are still messing things up on a regular basis?
For CMYK, going from ProPhoto RGB to CMYK vs. sRGB to CMYK, sorry, big difference and sRGB is substantially inferior in a large number of colors in the CMYK gamut. sRGB is inferior in cyans and blues/greens where it's really tough to get textural detail in those saturated colors. Oddly, it's red and red yellow/orange where sRGB really suffers in conversion from sRGB > CMYK...images whose colors blockup from sRGB maintain far better color gradations coming from PP RGB.
Yes, the gamut is inferior. We agree about that. But a beginner can survive an inferior gamut for a while. At least he'll get decent display-print matches. The gamut issue will never matter to a photo journalist either. It just hits fashion or landscape photographers and those we can expect will get some training anyway.
So, if you want the best working space for your hard worked master images that will future proof them for ever expanding gamuts of output color, going sRGB would be very short sighted and very limiting. Which, ironically is one of the big reasons that many photo labs demand sRGB...because they are very short sighted and they want to limit photographers' expectations...
I'll take "really, really works" over "mostly works very nicely but sometimes ends up totally messed up" any day of the week. Just as I prefer to eat a Mc Donald's hamburger rather than some oysters of unknown age and provenance.
As far as the rest of the 1-4 list...I would also take look at #1. While I agree and use Macs, it's been my experience that in the last few years, Apple (read Steve Jobs and his underlings) have pretty much marginalized ColorSync down to the point where instead of just making things work, it tends to get into everybody's way. The intentionally untagged profile target is just the more recent and obvious issues...print out of Windows is in many respects, easier and less prone to system problems than recent Mac OSs.
It's the hardware I like more, the monitors that come with a Mac are usually *usable* on day one without calibration, and do well with eyeball calibration. All my latest matte notebooks have been decent. We're not going to discuss the reason for this publicly, but it's actually due to the hard work of the color guys at Apple. The latest 27" iMac even has an IPS panel. AFAIK, all of Apple's add-on monitors are decent if not stellar. The chances of a "greenhorn" getting a decent cheap monitor for a desktop PC without prior research are close to zero, although they do exist.
The single biggest mountain to climb relating to color management and Photoshop is the creation and proper use of high quality (and very accurate) display profiles.
Getting even decent profiles has become challlenging. Oh, and btw, have you noticed that almost never does a decent display come with a colorimeter in the box? You're always supposed to order it. Yeah, sure.
Sadly, it's the display where many photographers tend to "cheap out" and get lower end solutions that can cause all sorts of problems particularly related to display output. Anybody who complains about "dark prints" is prolly not deploying their display and display color management correctly.
Why always blame the user? A lot of the recent "dark print" comments have originated with the Photoshop/Snow Leopard/Apple profiling and printing fiasco. Get out your keyboard and send a nice polite email to Mike Sweet or John Nack or Tom Lianza. Those who are not to "blame" can then show the polite feedback to convince the others that a fix cannot wait until Geriatric Cougar gets released.
Hey,it could be worse...it could still be 1995 when none of this stuff worked :~)
Indeed, but I have some decent measuring equipment in the world in this room - a couple of Eyeone Pro units, DTP70, iSIS XL, Barbieri LFP (nice unit less known btw), sundry colorimeters and even some hardware and software prototypes of my own design, and still cannot reliably profile my screen or print a target and make a paper profile from Snow Leopard. I think the biggest obstacle to color management is that no one at the various vendors (OS, displays, printers, Photoshop) ever does a test *together* with the other vendors, they just spend their time more constructively convincing their clients and bosses that it doesn't work because of the "other guys".
Well Jeff, this has been illuminating: As hard as I try I cannot really disagree about anything you say. However the fact that you and I can make this stuff work doesn't mean we want Joe User to waste his life on it.
Edmund
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The intentionally untagged profile target is just the more recent and obvious issues...
But that is a issue with Epson drivers not the OS or Adobe.
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But that is a issue with Epson drivers not the OS or Adobe.
Let me reformulate your post clearly:
If you -user- have any issues with color management, this is your fault and yours alone. You cannot pester us, and no else either because we will make sure that no single party can be proven to be wholly responsible for any part of this mess. You are an idiot, you do not know how to use your equipment, you have the wrong equipment, you have the wrong software, you have not read the right books, you have got a wrong version, your horoscope is of the wrong star sign, you are an idiot which is why we will keep selling you stuff that doesn't work and then tell you that it's someone else's fault.
Things actually haven't worked right since Leopard. This was talked about repeatedly at ICC meetings. If execs at Apple, Adobe and Epson genuinely had wanted this problem fixed they would have sat down at one table and have fixed it, and it would already have been done. All the execs really want is apportion blame, avoid having to budget for an engineering fix on the theory "it's their fault so they should fix it", and hope that the software which has this issue will be stale and "unfixable" by the time a fix is decided so that they can make target printing a "feature" in the next OS and software update. So far this strategy has worked for them.
AFAIK there is only one company which really really really wants this fixed, and that is Xrite because their support costs are escalating and amateur photo color management is actually part of their company's mission statement. Apple and Adobe are so huge they don't really care about anything anymore, and Epson printers will work decently with their own media and their own canned profiles so the fact that new profiles can't be made for third party papers is actually a form of lock-in that is advantageous to their bottom line.
Edmund
PS. And let's all repeat the Mantra: Your horoscope is of the wrong star sign, you are an idiot which is why we will keep selling you stuff that doesn't work and then tell you that it's someone else's fault.
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Case in point, it's really hard to print out a profile target through Photoshop CS4 using Leopard or Snow Leopard and recent Epson printers...the whole color management pipeline relating to intentionally untagged color targets is broken.
Jeff Schewe
Hi Jeff.
Sorry to labour the point but this issue also effects Tiger, and includes Canon printers as well. There is also some limited evidence (from web postings) to indicate that it also effects HP printers.
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Things actually haven't worked right since Leopard.
Epson printers will work decently with their own media and their own canned profiles so the fact that new profiles can't be made for third party papers is actually a form of lock-in that is advantageous to their bottom line.
Edmund
PS. And let's all repeat the Mantra: Your horoscope is of the wrong star sign, you are an idiot which is why we will keep selling you stuff that doesn't work and then tell you that it's someone else's fault.
This is really not about Leopard. This is about implementing correctly Apple's New Printing Path. We saw this way back with LR 1.3.1 and Tiger. If something is not correct in this path you are going to get double profiling. That is exactly why Epson canned profiles that have a corresponding profile assign in ColorSync work. Your still double profiling but with the same profile which is why you can't send a untagged image through the driver because it will get changed by a profile in ColorSync. Why ColorSync Utility Workaround works is because you assign the same profile in both place but you still double profiling. And, is why you still cannot send untagged, unmanaged targets is because ColorSync is profiling the image.
There are printer drivers that work correctly so I know it can be done, but then here come Adobe with LR3 beta and screws this up, which leads to your question. Does anybody (Apple, Adobe, Printer/Manufactures) really understand what they are doing here? What will happen when other apps move to the new printing path?
Doyle
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Hi Jeff.
Sorry to labour the point but this issue also effects Tiger, and includes Canon printers as well. There is also some limited evidence (from web postings) to indicate that it also effects HP printers.
Is there anyway that you can post a screen capture of you printer driver options under Color Matching, Main/Color etc. I would like to see why your Canon driver do not work correctly when the Canon iPF series driver do.
Are you using Driver Version 10.26.0 Released on 10-09-2009 for your Canon printer?
Doyle
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This is really not about Leopard. This is about implementing correctly Apple's New Printing Path. We saw this way back with LR 1.3.1 and Tiger. If something is not correct in this path you are going to get double profiling. That is exactly why Epson canned profiles that have a corresponding profile assign in ColorSync work. Your still double profiling but with the same profile which is why you can't send a untagged image through the driver because it will get changed by a profile in ColorSync. Why ColorSync Utility Workaround works is because you assign the same profile in both place but you still double profiling. And, is why you still cannot send untagged, unmanaged targets is because ColorSync is profiling the image.
There are printer drivers that work correctly so I know it can be done, but then here come Adobe with LR3 beta and screws this up, which leads to your question. Does anybody (Apple, Adobe, Printer/Manufactures) really understand what they are doing here? What will happen when other apps move to the new printing path?
Doyle
Doyle,
Only Mac users at the level of competence found in this forum (eg. prosumers and small sized business users) are stranded. The high end - professionals with RIPS, and the low end - consumers who do not need to print targets - have no issues. Of course the quasi totality of Adobe Lightroom buyers happen to be prosumers who want to print to inkjet
As to "Does anybody (Apple, Adobe, Printer/Manufactures) really understand what they are doing here? What will happen when other apps move to the new printing path? ", the answers seem to be "Nobody really understood the implications when Apple made the changes to the print path, but they may be starting to get it now we customers have raised hell" and "It's going to get gory before it gets better".
Just repeat the mantra: Your horoscope is of the wrong star sign, you are an idiot which is why we will keep selling you stuff that doesn't work and then tell you that it's someone else's fault.
Edmund
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As to "Does anybody (Apple, Adobe, Printer/Manufactures) really understand what they are doing here? What will happen when other apps move to the new printing path? ", the answers seem to be "Nobody really understood the implications when Apple made the changes to the print path, but they may be starting to get it now we customers have raised hell" and "It's going to get gory before it gets better".
No, there was indeed a group of people who knew EXACTLY what kinda shyte was going to be hitting which fan back in 2006 when we had a "meeting" between Apple, Adobe & Epson engineers and a variety of outside experts such as Chris Murphy, Bruce Fraser (I think Andrew might have been involved) and myself...
WE knew then that the eventual print pipeline for OS X was going to cause some problems for some drivers and applications. When Apple's ColorSync guys stated that they wanted to irradiate all untagged files, even files that were intentionally untagged, the outside experts had a cow...
So, as it stands, in Snow Leopard (and certain Leopard App & driver combinations) there is no such thing as an untagged file...ColorSync will helpfully tag EVERYTHING even if that is undesirable...
This doesn't impact application managed color nor print driver managed color...only the rare case where a color profile target is intentionally untagged.
As far as other problems related to Mac print drivers, there are a lot of issues developing ANYTHING for Mac because Apple has this tenancy changing direction quickly and sometimes undoing what they promised they would do (such as promising 64 bit Carbon then killing it making Photoshop change to Cocoa from Carbon–a project of massive effort coming on the heels of a change forced on the compilers from CodeWarrior to Xcode).
Seriously, Mac users have no idea (in general) just how hard Mac developers (apps and drivers) have to work to get this shyte to "barely work"...and it keeps getting harder, not easier.
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No, there was indeed a group of people who knew EXACTLY what kinda shyte was going to be hitting which fan back in 2006 when we had a "meeting" between Apple, Adobe & Epson engineers and a variety of outside experts such as Chris Murphy, Bruce Fraser (I think Andrew might have been involved) and myself...
Seriously, Mac users have no idea (in general) just how hard Mac developers (apps and drivers) have to work to get this shyte to "barely work"...and it keeps getting harder, not easier.
The print issues on the Mac were talked about informally during ICC meetings I attended a year ago; everybody was very unhappy, including whoever was representing Apple on that day, but it was clear that the color people's point of view, including their own specialists, was now considered irrelevant to the direction the company was moving on printing.
Edmund
-- Just repeat the mantra: Your horoscope is of the wrong star sign, you are an idiot which is why we will keep selling you stuff that doesn't work and then tell you that it's someone else's fault.
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Well I haven't switched to a Mac (refuse to pay a premium for a computer that doesn't seem to run the applications that I need any differently); I can profile my NEC P-221 easily enough with a ColorMunki and the SpectraView software; I open up my raw files in Lightroom with ProPhoto colorspace (moving to Photoshop when I need to); I can create profiles using ColorMunki with little problem; and lo and behold, my prints match my monitor. My goodness, am I doing something wrong? Hate to be so flippant in the response but while I agree that maybe this isn't rocket science; it's not as hard as one might think (but maybe that's because I have a graduate degree in chemistry - that is a flippant statment!). There are enough resources out there for any dedicated amateur (that would be me) to do things correctly. Yes there is a learning curve (as there is with almost anything) but satisfaction when it all comes together. I truly hope all the Mac profiling issues can be quickly resolved so these threads will no longer be needed.
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Seriously, Mac users have no idea (in general) just how hard Mac developers (apps and drivers) have to work to get this shyte to "barely work"...and it keeps getting harder, not easier.
Maybe all the developers of print drivers need to get a hold of the developers of the Canon iPF series drivers because they seem to have gotten it right.
Or maybe and this would be a laugh, if they just somehow got lucky and somehow it worked. Given this whole mess it would not surprise me if that is what happened.
Trying to idiot proof printing instead of allowing control of all driver function like in the old path is what has caused all this shyte in the first place, don't you think?
Doyle
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Maybe all the developers of print drivers need to get a hold of the developers of the Canon iPF series drivers because they seem to have gotten it right.
Or maybe and this would be a laugh, if they just somehow got lucky and somehow it worked. Given this whole mess it would not surprise me if that is what happened.
Trying to idiot proof printing instead of allowing control of all driver function like in the old path is what has caused all this shyte in the first place, don't you think?
Doyle
Most of us here seem think that the print system of Snow Leopard *is* idiot proof.
At least we can get a laugh or a groan
Edmund
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Or maybe and this would be a laugh, if they just somehow got lucky and somehow it worked. Given this whole mess it would not surprise me if that is what happened.
I would _NEVER_ accuse Canon of being ahead of the engineering curve...if they got something right it must have been by accident...or they sincerely lucked out.
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I'll tell you what I am going to do this afternoon when I get home from work: because I have an Intel iMac which I have partitioned for a Windows business application, I am going to load CS3 and try this whole exercise through Windows XP, CS3, Colormunki and Epson. It will be interesting to see if anything different happens.
Most of you guys talk about the problem being related to "untagged targets through CS4", Colormunki produces its own target - is that affected in the same way as the CS4 one? Or are there other issues aside from that?
Thanks again for your passionate responses!
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I'll tell you what I am going to do this afternoon when I get home from work: because I have an Intel iMac which I have partitioned for a Windows business application, I am going to load CS3 and try this whole exercise through Windows XP, CS3, Colormunki and Epson. It will be interesting to see if anything different happens.
Most of you guys talk about the problem being related to "untagged targets through CS4", Colormunki produces its own target - is that affected in the same way as the CS4 one? Or are there other issues aside from that?
Thanks again for your passionate responses!
Yes, the ColorMunki target is affected, I believe, and this is doing wonders for Xrite's support load.
Edmund
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Edmund thanks - do you think the Windows option is worth a try?
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Edmund thanks - do you think the Windows option is worth a try?
I do not work for the techie side of any industry so keep things simple. I take my photography seriously and my printing. BUT if it works leave it alone and don't investigate the dark art of colour management and printing if you don't need to. Thats my mantra.
I use adobe RGB (camera setting through to colour management).
Yes, I guess I leave something on the table but not as much as sRGB. I too want to future proof my raws and printed Tiff,PSD libraries , etc.
I use a Canon pro 9500 and iPF6100, for the PS plugin, IT works just like the canned paper profiles supplied by the major players. The printer needs only to look after itself in calibration terms. I use genuine ink cartridges, many don't!
I use a Mac, always have as I worked with PCs in another time and place far far away................ Not allowed in my house.
I think if you don't calibrate a good quality monitor you may as well give up. Many don't including graphic based companies here in the UK.
The prints are as great. I am mostly a happy bunny.
Soft proofing is a tool that does not work well for me and I use it as a last resort.
If a specific print is a little dark why not lighten it in the print driver? Most should be OK if the monitor is targeted for printing. Not DVD watching.
Well, thats my input such as it is.
Love all the tutorials
Regards
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I'll tell you what I am going to do this afternoon when I get home from work: because I have an Intel iMac which I have partitioned for a Windows business application, I am going to load CS3 and try this whole exercise through Windows XP, CS3, Colormunki and Epson. It will be interesting to see if anything different happens.
Most of you guys talk about the problem being related to "untagged targets through CS4", Colormunki produces its own target - is that affected in the same way as the CS4 one? Or are there other issues aside from that?
Thanks again for your passionate responses!
If I am not mistaken, the profile should be agnostic of the operating system from which it is created. Since ColorMunki uses its own software to create the profile you should be able to do this within the Windows partition and then use the resulting profile within the Mac program (treading on thin ice here perhaps as I have no familiarity with Macs). You would avoid the Mac glitch for profile making but be able to use it. Let us know.
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Color science is a lot harder that rocket science...
This is quite true. On another forum, I (and others) spent two pages of replies working with a fellow who just could not grasp the concept, and it turns out that he actually is a rocket scientist!
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If I am not mistaken, the profile should be agnostic of the operating system from which it is created. Since ColorMunki uses its own software to create the profile you should be able to do this within the Windows partition and then use the resulting profile within the Mac program (treading on thin ice here perhaps as I have no familiarity with Macs). You would avoid the Mac glitch for profile making but be able to use it. Let us know.
But that is assuming that everything works correctly on the Mac side and your not getting double profiling again by ColorSync.
Doyle
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But that is assuming that everything works correctly on the Mac side and your not getting double profiling again by ColorSync.
Doyle
Not a Mac user as noted but my understanding is that if a profile is assigned, ColorSynch doesn't add a second one. The problem comes from printing out targets where it expects a profile and you don't want to assign one to the target. My comment was only that this could be yet another work around to printing out targets and creating a workable profile.
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Not a Mac user as noted but my understanding is that if a profile is assigned, ColorSynch doesn't add a second one. The problem comes from printing out targets where it expects a profile and you don't want to assign one to the target. My comment was only that this could be yet another work around to printing out targets and creating a workable profile.
Your right it could be if the driver is correct enough to not default to ColorSync when Application Manages Color is selected. But like I said you cannot assume anything with this mess as there is no guarantees that setting Application Manages color is going to work correctly. LR3 Beta is a perfect example.
Could be application, could be printer driver, could be OS and nobody knows until you try it, and how do you determined if it is double profiling when the print looks like shyte. Although I must say with the Canon (some of them) drivers you can tell when it is defaulting to ColorSync instead of No Correction. With Epson drivers that does not appear to be the case.
Doyle
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If I am not mistaken, the profile should be agnostic of the operating system from which it is created. Since ColorMunki uses its own software to create the profile you should be able to do this within the Windows partition and then use the resulting profile within the Mac program (treading on thin ice here perhaps as I have no familiarity with Macs). You would avoid the Mac glitch for profile making but be able to use it. Let us know.
The problem is that you need to be able to print a target with the print path which will be used to print the images. Epson drivers should indeed behave similarly on different platforms; on the other hand it's clear that what should be true is not always true in practice here, and the Mac print path is a mess, and even if Epson wants the drivers to behave the same there is no guarantee that they will.
I would suggest that people who are not experts on these topics refrain from posting hypothetical conjectural advice which will confuse beginners. The Eric Chan workaround is available for those who want to try it on Snow Leopard Mac, people on different platforms do not have these issues, although various versions of Leopard and Tiger have also had their issues depending on which version of Photoshop is being used.
Edmund
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The problem is that you need to be able to print a target with the print path which will be used to print the images. Epson drivers should indeed behave similarly on different platforms; on the other hand it's clear that what should be true is not always true in practice here, and the Mac print path is a mess, and even if Epson wants the drivers to behave the same there is no guarantee that they will.
I would suggest that people who are not experts on these topics refrain from posting hypothetical conjectural advice which will confuse beginners. The Eric Chan workaround is available for those who want to try it on Snow Leopard Mac, people on different platforms do not have these issues, although various versions of Leopard and Tiger have also had their issues depending on which version of Photoshop is being used.
Edmund
But the simple experiment can be performed using the Epson factory supplied profile. They had to prepare that profile using conventional means and they post it to their website. If the Mac is somehow interfering with the printing process, this should be directly observable visually and measurable using a the normal spectro tools. As one of the other postes to this thread noted, "this is not rocket science." If the Mac print path is such a mess, how can anyone be confident of their prints? this does not take an expert to judge.
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But the simple experiment can be performed using the Epson factory supplied profile. They had to prepare that profile using conventional means and they post it to their website. If the Mac is somehow interfering with the printing process, this should be directly observable visually and measurable using a the normal spectro tools. As one of the other postes to this thread noted, "this is not rocket science." If the Mac print path is such a mess, how can anyone be confident of their prints? this does not take an expert to judge.
You obviously do not understand what is going on in regards to what happens when CM can not be turned off in the driver and colorsync takes over and the relationship between double profiling with the same profile as opposed to double profiling with two different profiles.
I suggest you read up on this issue and quit throwing more nonsense into this already full of nonsense mess.
Doyle
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A follow-up on my attempt to print through the windows partition of my iMac (with all the issues that go with that...).
Colormunki was not allowed to adjust the luminance down because of something to do with the LUT - I don't recall the precise wording of the message. The bottom line was that no luminance setting took place at all (in the advanced mode). In desperation I tried in the automatic/easy mode and it was able to make a small downward adjustment.
The colours that printed were certainly much more accurate than through Mac - just a little dark. I will double check and retry the advanced colormunki setting again this evening.
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Well, all I can say is "Shame on Apple!"
The Colormunki worked fine on Windows when I got home, I profiled two different papers and made three prints that came out - as far as I can tell - perfect! Precisely what was on the screen came out on the print, only deeper and richer. I realise that I still have a long way to go and a lot to learn from here on, but, I can now trust my screen and go forward. After the hellish last few days, that is a very nice feeling.
What Apple have done, only the experts know and, I suspect, some (at Apple) don't! How a company that size, and with the reputation of being the best in graphics etc. can allow this situation to arise is something they may live to regret. The fact that one has to rely on forums to try and solve ridiculous problems like the one they have created is shameful.
Thanks again to all the helpful people who contributed to this post.
Now I can start to learn this art!
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Well, all I can say is "Shame on Apple!"
The Colormunki worked fine on Windows when I got home, I profiled two different papers and made three prints that came out - as far as I can tell - perfect! Precisely what was on the screen came out on the print, only deeper and richer. I realise that I still have a long way to go and a lot to learn from here on, but, I can now trust my screen and go forward. After the hellish last few days, that is a very nice feeling.
What Apple have done, only the experts know and, I suspect, some (at Apple) don't! How a company that size, and with the reputation of being the best in graphics etc. can allow this situation to arise is something they may live to regret. The fact that one has to rely on forums to try and solve ridiculous problems like the one they have created is shameful.
Thanks again to all the helpful people who contributed to this post.
Now I can start to learn this art!
After all the facts I have presented where do you come off blaming Apple. The only thing Apple has done is implement a new printing path with the intention of when you choose Application Manages Color the printer driver turns off color management. Call that idiot proofing if you want but it works beautifully when everything is coded correctly. Do, I like it? No, I want all my control back like in the old printing path.
With the Canon iPF series printer drivers and PSCS4 and LR 2 this new printing path works perfectly.
So are you going to tell me that it is Apples fault the Epson cannot get their shyte together. Although there are report of some Epson drivers working correctly.
And are you going to tell me that it is Apples fault that Adobe released a screwed up LR 3 Beta after insisting that they are doing everything (that Apple wanted) right with PSCS4 and LR 2 and by all appearances they had.
I will be the first one to jump all over Apple as I have with Indesign and printing to an RGB device where the monitor profile got introduced into the print flow.
After having tested all this stuff (and developing workarounds for these issues), all I am doing is calling the shots as I see them .
Doyle
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After all the facts I have presented where do you come off blaming Apple. The only thing Apple has done is implement a new printing path with the intention of when you choose Application Manages Color the printer driver turns off color management. Call that idiot proofing if you want but it works beautifully when everything is coded correctly. Do, I like it? No, I want all my control back like in the old printing path.
With the Canon iPF series printer drivers and PSCS4 and LR 2 this new printing path works perfectly.
So are you going to tell me that it is Apples fault the Epson cannot get their shyte together. Although there are report of some Epson drivers working correctly.
And are you going to tell me that it is Apples fault that Adobe released a screwed up LR 3 Beta after insisting that they are doing everything (that Apple wanted) right with PSCS4 and LR 2 and by all appearances they had.
I will be the first one to jump all over Apple as I have with Indesign and printing to an RGB device where the monitor profile got introduced into the print flow.
After having tested all this stuff (and developing workarounds for these issues), all I am doing is calling the shots as I see them .
Doyle
Enough. Apple, Adobe Epson etc. have for years encouraged a model where no interoperability diagnostics are NEVER incorporated into the products. The user is responsible for making sure things work as advertised. Yeah, sure. Guess how often that really works? I would bet that only 5-10% of people who are color management aware actually have fully functional CM chains. The reason is that usually even when someone in the know sets up a users system, bit-rot (configuration mistakes, presets that copy badly, driver updates) will sooner or later cause that system to revert back to an erroneous workflow.
Edmund
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Enough. Apple, Adobe Epson etc. have for years encouraged a model where no interoperability diagnostics are NEVER incorporated into the products. The user is responsible for making sure things work as advertised. Yeah, sure. Guess how often that really works? I would bet that only 5-10% of people who are color management aware actually have fully functional CM chains. The reason is that usually even when someone in the know sets up a users system, bit-rot (configuration mistakes, presets that copy badly, driver updates) will sooner or later cause that system to revert back to an erroneous workflow.
Edmund
Sticking up for Apple and the idiot proofing path are we? But, yes I can see your point and Apple's.
The dumbing down with better idiots all the time. Man this is getting scary.
Doyle
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Sticking up for Apple and the idiot proofing path are we? But, yes I can see your point and Apple's.
The dumbing down with better idiots all the time. Man this is getting scary.
Doyle
What I'm saying is a Plague on All their Houses!
Let these guys sit down and build some diagnostics so that users can easily check if their systems are working ok.
Edmund
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Doyle, for me it is as simple as that. I'll tell you why: I might be a Greenhorn when it comes to Colour Management and Printing - but after thirty years in the the Service industry I'm not so green there. It is all about customer perceptions, and this my perception as an Apple customer.
When I buy a product I expect it to work. Now as you know, I bought an iMac, I upgraded to Snow Leopard, I bought the Epson 3880 and I bought the Colormunki - then I followed all the instructions all these manufactures gave me and I printed the ugliest pictures I have ever seen. Frankly, after several days of trying to fix this thing with the help of passionate people like yourself, Edmund, et al I still ended up printing ugly pictures!
All I did was take the same iMac, the same Epson, (and CS3 instead of CS4) the same Colormunki and the same Idiot - and I made pictures where the term "night and day" does not even come close to describing the difference! The only difference was Snow Leopard (and CS3 and, if that is a problem, then shame on Adobe too!)
Here's where the Service part comes in. If I have any kind of problem with the products I sell and service, I have learned through the likes of service Gurus such as Tom Peters and others that you communicate with your customer, acknowledge that there is a problem and tell them how you are going to fix it. The only place where I heard there was a problem was on this website!
The ins and outs of the technicalities of the problem may well interest you - all I want is the damn thing that I paid a lot of money for - to work!
The bottom line for me is that it worked on Windows and it did not work on Apple - therefore Shame on Apple!
There are two impressions that I would not like to leave you with: firstly, that now I'm an expert - I understand that all I have accomplished so far is to get the system to work. Secondly, I sincerely appreciate the input I have received from you guys - I am just not all that interested in the "whys and wherefores".
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The bottom line for me is that it worked on Windows and it did not work on Apple - therefore Shame on Apple!
Gotta say, in the end you aren't wrong...
At one point, Apple friggin' OWNED digital imaging and printing...so what if Apple decided that a gamma 1.8 was best compared to a gamma 2,2 for the rest of the industry...for Apple it just WORKED...
Then, somewhere along the lines, ColorSync (which for a short period of time was actually working on Windows as well as Mac) was marginalized because of 1) iPods, iPhone, iMac, or "whatever"...
The bottom line is that what once made the Mac great was no longer a major factor and never will be again...
Yes, indeed, Shame on Figgin' Apple cause at one point, they completely OWNED this space (you NEEDED a Mac to solve this shyte) and then they let it all slip away...
Gotta tella ya...it ain't fun and elegant, but if ya want a print in the least amount of hassle, take your Mac, boot up under BootCamp to Vista or Windows 7 and make your friggin' prints and bypass the Mac print pipeline entirely...
Yes, the direct cause of the recent profile target problem is Epson, but the real reason is that Apple refused to provide an intentionally untagged output...(even though some of us told them t was important).
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Yes, the direct cause of the recent profile target problem is Epson, but the real reason is that Apple refused to provide an intentionally untagged output...(even though some of us told them t was important).
Being able to print intentionally untagged output still works, maybe not with Epson and I don't know about HP, but with Canon at least the iPF series driver it does. Driver functions the same whether I choose Application Manages Color or No Color Management in PSCS4, and that is No Correction in the driver.
Since it can and has been proven that it can work correctly the blame game hasn't got Epson anywhere now has it?
Doyle
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When I buy a product I expect it to work. Now as you know, I bought an iMac, I upgraded to Snow Leopard, I bought the Epson 3880 and I bought the Colormunki - then I followed all the instructions all these manufactures gave me and I printed the ugliest pictures I have ever seen. Frankly, after several days of trying to fix this thing with the help of passionate people like yourself, Edmund, et al I still ended up printing ugly pictures!
I am sorry that you bought the wrong printer from the wrong company to work with Apple.
It you want to keep thing simple and don't really care why it it won't work correctly looks like your choices are.
Check if there is a new SL driver available. Then completely uninstall the old driver and install the new one. For what it is worth here is the latest driver for the 3880.
http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/support...d=141552#stage1 (http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/support/SupportSnowLeopardDetails.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=141552#stage1)
Run Windows.
Purchase a printer that works with Snow Leopard.
Doyle
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Thanks for that link - that is for Version 6.60 which is what I have.
I will continue with Windows until this thing is sorted out properly - the bottom line is that if Epson threw a "curve-ball" then the fact is that Windows appears to have responded better to it than Apple have.
Thanks again!
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I am sorry that you bought the wrong printer from the wrong company to work with Apple.
It you want to keep thing simple and don't really care why it it won't work correctly looks like your choices are.
Check if there is a new SL driver available. Then completely uninstall the old driver and install the new one. For what it is worth here is the latest driver for the 3880.
http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/support...d=141552#stage1 (http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/support/SupportSnowLeopardDetails.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=141552#stage1)
Run Windows.
Purchase a printer that works with Snow Leopard.
Doyle
I see another choice, the one I recommend to people, which is downgrade to Leopard temporarily, if you can.
I have a Leopard notebook which runs Leopard and all the various dongle drivers for my profiling software, and this notebook can both profile and print. It even runs my own custom profiling suite which drives my Barbieri spectro. I'd recommend that anyone on this forum who as an older Mac downgrade to Leopard for photo usage.
Up to now, I'm sorry to say I have not even been able to profile my Snow Leopard screen with the solution I usually employ. And yes, Doyle, I know that it's not Apple's fault, of course not, that most of the software I own seems to have issues with Snow Leopard. Apple is always right.
Edmund
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Thanks for that link - that is for Version 6.60 which is what I have.
I will continue with Windows until this thing is sorted out properly - the bottom line is that if Epson threw a "curve-ball" then the fact is that Windows appears to have responded better to it than Apple have.
Thanks again!
You and Epson will never get very far down the road with this horse behind the cart mentality. Until you all figure out who the horse is (like it or not) and how to properly hook up to it you and the software vendors will never get anywhere.
Doyle
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Gotta tella ya...it ain't fun and elegant, but if ya want a print in the least amount of hassle, take your Mac, boot up under BootCamp to Vista or Windows 7 and make your friggin' prints and bypass the Mac print pipeline entirely...
Yes, the direct cause of the recent profile target problem is Epson, but the real reason is that Apple refused to provide an intentionally untagged output...(even though some of us told them t was important).
...and here I was with a roomful of PC equipment thinking "...maybe these MAC guys have something.."
They do.....TROUBLES
Win 7 looking good, and my 7900 drivers are coming out just fine
for now!
:-)
regards
Victor