 Rotten Apples Piezography users take note if using OS X 10.5 or higher! The Mac OS X system has been causing us quite a bit of problems with customers who we have been producing custom Piezograhy K7 profiling. These late generation Mac OS X systems have been introducing some strange effects into the mix. Dana Ceccarelli worked tirelessly this Summer to document each and every permeation of these operating systems. You can read about that here. The bottom line is that Apple does not allow its customers to print without selecting some form of color management (an ICC profile). When it detects an image being printed without an ICC profile, the Mac OS X takes over, applies a conversion to the image and does this all behind the scenes. The most difficult part of this is that each successive generation of Mac OS X after 10.4 does it differently. You would think that they came up with a plan to stick with.
While many of us were anticipating support for 16 bit displays (such as the Eizo CG series), Apple seems instead to be focused on a consumer market, taking control once and for all of the File / Print menu so that consumers can print blindly. Professionals (again) are simply being left behind. Photoshop is NOT the blame on this. And while Adobe has released a Print Utility, the newest Apple OS has found a way to interfere even with that. You would think that Apple and Adobe might be a little more collaborative. So what's the big deal? Piezography K7 curves can produce tens of thousands of gray levels when used with the Piezography K7 inks. These gray levels are linearized into a very smooth tonal gradation from dMin to dMax. You just do not want Apple messing with that. So if you are the type of photographer who wishes to have custom K7 curves produced for your own system, or for custom papers, you need to print the K7 256 gray patch targets without any color management. Apple has been preventing that. For regular K7 printing, we have been advising different printing instructions since 10.4.
To the Rescue! Roy Harrington released a MUST HAVE tool for all Mac users on OS X 10.5 and higher. The QTR rint Tool is a stand alone application that is used as a layout manager (compose multiple images) and sends the layout to QuadTone RIP. You can read about that here and download the trial version.
Print Tool allows you to print without any interference from the Mac OS. By selecting "No Color Management" from the Print Tool menu - no color management is applied. Your images are passed to QuadTone RIP where you select the correct Piezography K7 media profile. And life is good again...on the Apple platform. |
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