Apple and Color Management

[mikling]

Can anyone explain how Apple does it relative to Windows?
Why are so many people having issues with color management these days.
In a few months I intend to get some Apple stuff to see what the other side is all about.
But before that, I want to know what to watch out for.

 

[cls]

Apple? ... dont... its a mess

 

[The Hat]

Hi Mike,
On my two Mac computers they print exactly the same as my two Windows computers do, but make sure you have the same Application on both platforms.

When I print through Photoshop I always allow the printer to handle colour and if I want Photoshop to handle colour (Very rarely if ever) then the Mac O/S turns off printer colour control automatically which allows Photoshop full access.

I don’t know why so many have so much trouble printing through Mac O/S, maybe it’s because they think it should be easer just like it is using a iPhone or iPad, but it’s not, you still have to engage your brain unfortunately.

I have worked on Mac’s for the best part of 20 years and moved between both platforms on a daily basics and the only problems I’ve ever encounter was when a swelled headed Windows user tried to print using a Mac, trouble was sure to follow.

I have used several type of printers mostly Postscript Xerox, Oki and Canon, on Mac’s and keep the one Epson printer solely for the Windows O/S, it was always troublesome getting it to work first time on the Mac O/S, I don’t know why.

The best bit of advice I can give you is, don’t try to over think the job in hand and if it doesn’t work the first time then don’t repeat the same error twice, just follow your common sense and you’ll get there in the end.

Good luck with you new project..

 

[mikling]

I know of one person who keeps an older Mac around solely for printing because he says he gets different results with Apple's newer OS but same apps. The printer brand was Epson. Any idea why that might be the case? Same apps same ICCs and different results! Maybe that is why Serhat responded. Maybe he can tell us of the hell that me might have been through. Many many years ago, everyone swore by Apple for color work..why the division now?

 

[jtoolman]

The Hat: About 95% of the posts I read regarding REALLY ODD & WEIRD printing problems it seems they are always attributed to the fact that the OP is printing with a MAC. Though to be fair it eventually gets attributed to the crappy driver support by CANON and EPSON.
There are problems with the CANON PRO-100 MAC Driver with Fine Art paper and many other situations.
Sure if you just let the printer handle color, it is a piece of cake.
I used to work for years on MACs at my last job with the Fed Gov and used to print many photos simply letting the printer handle color. But since The Maverick OS recently came into play, all sort of weird problems have also emerged with it concerning photo printing.
These are almost all having to do with people letting the OS automatically install the printer driver rather than going to the Printer's Site and downloading the actual current driver.
An old hand at printing through a MAC will never find it to be a problem as they simply KNOW what to do.
However, and you all can just go to the DPR site and search to find all sorts of crazy problems that are always ultimately attributed to the Mac OS / Driver combination, specifically Maverick.
Even after a new driver is installed, it seems to also have a lot to do with user inexperience.
The luminous Landscape people specifically Jeff Schewe print exclusively on MACs and have not problems. Why? They simply know the ins and outs of printing through that particular OS.
Currently I print and work with Windows Machines. I am so used to it that I joke that I can print with my eyes closed and be assured that the print comes out as I expect it to be.
To be fair, I've also heard and read about problems with people switching from WIN 7 to WIN 8 and color management. Though I have to say that I have yet to experience any problems with my WIN-8 laptop.
To help make things manageable, I pre set all of my many printers to print without color management as a default.
That way I do not have to ever worry whether I have turned off management or not on any of the printers that I use only for image printing.
Is there a way to do that on a MAC? I actually do not know so I ask.

Joe

 

[mikling]

I wonder if there is an ultimate guide for printing on Macs or something like it that delves into what is going on in the background. Or is the user on Apples so removed that they'll never know.

Never owned a Mac so I'm intrigued.

 

[jtoolman]

I think in the areas of Color Management when it comes to MACs it is almost as if they assume you the user can not make your own decisions so they automate some of these functions such as turning off color management in the driver when you tell your editing app to manage color.
I would rather they allowed me to make that choice myself. But that's just me.

Functions such as Color Sinc and Bonjour are interesting enough. You will definitely have fun exploring the MAC OS, which is Linux based I believe, and since now they use Intel processors, they are not as proprietary as they used to be in the early OS/9 days.

Joe

 

[mikling]

My intention is Hackintosh actually.

http://lifehacker.com/the-always-up-to-date-guide-to-building-a-hackintosh-o-5841604

 

[pharmacist]

Maybe we should contact Apple and ask for a special warning window, for which we need to type in administrator password to disable color management as a compromise. I have 2 Macs and it is a horror to work with. I was never able to disable color management completely to print profiles. I gave up and now I am using Windows only for printing profile targets.

 

[jtoolman]

I believe ADOBE made a tool that is used specifically to print targets through PS and the MAC OS.
It would supposedly guarantee that the targets would be printed without ANY color management.