Frequently Asked Questions

We asked Photoshop guru Mark Galer www.markgaler.com the following question.

QUESTION

A lot of our clients are buying iMacs and are unable to bring the screen to the 120 to 140 cd/m2 we recommend. We normally recommend Charcoal Design SHADES to fix the issue. This article recommends some other software as well.

Do you have a preferred method to get an iMac profiled to the 120 to 140 cd/m2 we recommend?

ANSWER

That’s an interesting topic you raise about the iMac screens. Because these screens are only 8 bits there is a school of thought that they are not really suitable for calibrating down to 120-140 from their native luminance anyway – due to the banding this may cause. The Shades App does warn that this may not be suitable for colour critical work as it can upset monitor profiling and Apple’s latest Mountain Lion operating system will prevent users installing any app that is not downloaded through the Mac App store (Shades is not currently available).

My own thoughts would be to not recommend an iMac screen for ‘soft proofing’ in a ‘side-by-side’ setup (screen and print viewed at the same time). Most users who purchase a daylight viewing cabinet or set up optimum daylight viewing conditions for viewing prints will probably also be using a better quality monitor as well.

Finally X-Rite has provided an upgrade path to permit i1Display2 users to run their instruments with Mac OS LION.

It is available at http://tinyurl.com/7gsxcrs

X-Rite must have been pretty surprised by the reaction of both end-users and resellers who complained about the situation.

X-Rite, probably had no idea that Apple were going to drop Rosetta from Mac OS LION, although you could argue that X-Rite should have upgraded their software to run natively on Intel-based Mac’s as Rosetta was ultimately going to disappear from the Mac at some point.

It seems X-Rite have listened and acted. Any customer who purchased and registered their i1 Display 2 or i1 Display LT from Jan 1st 2011 will be eligible for a free upgrade.

Customers who purchased the i1 Display 2 or i1 Display LT prior to 2011 will be able to get the upgrade for a small fee (to be announced).

If you still have problems with FileFlow please use our YouSendIt facility.
Dont forget to give us your correct phone and address details in the message area!

Upload using YouSendIt

If you have trouble getting Pixel Perfect’s FileFlow upload applet working on a Mac, please try the following.

DO SOFTWARE UPDATES

Go to Apple menu in Finder
Select Software Updates
Ensure Java is updated (you may have to run updates multiple times).

USING THE REPAIR PRIVILEGES UTILITY
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2963

For Mac OS X 10.2 or later, open Disk Utility (/Applications/Utilities/).
Select your Mac OS X start-up volume in the column on the left of the Disk Utility window, then click the First Aid tab. Click the Repair Disk Permissions button.
RESET YOUR MAC’S PRAM AND NVRAM
http://tinyurl.com/6k26v7

How to Reset PRAM and NVRAM

1.  Shut down the computer.
2. Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
3. Turn on the computer.
4. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
5. Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the start-up sound for the second time.
6. Release the keys.

Your computer’s PRAM and the NVRAM are reset to the default values. The clock settings may be reset to a default date on some models.

FIREFOX
If Safari still will not allow FileFlow to work, please download the free Firefox browser and use it. Firefox is free, open source & available for Mac, Windows, Linux in a variety of languages.
Download Firefox here

In Control Panel click on Java.
Select the Update tab, and click on Update Now.

Internet Explorer

1. In the menu bar, click on Tools and select Internet Options.
2. Click on Advanced tab, and scroll down to Java (Sun).
3. Enable Java by checking Use JRE.
4. Next, select the Security tab, and click on the Custom Level button.
5. Scroll down to Scripting of Java applets.
6.  Enable JavaScript by checking Enable.
7.  Click OK to save your preferences.
8.  Restart Internet Explorer.

Firefox

1. From the menu bar, click on lt;strong>Tools and select Preferences.
2. Select the Content category.
3. Enable Java and JavaScript.
4. Restart Firefox.

FileFlow uses the standard ports of http 80 and https 443 and these must be open for our services to function properly.

Please configure your firewall to permit FileFlow to use these ports.

If you work at a company, you may need to ask your IT support staff to enable these ports as you may not have permission to do so.

Many Mac users find that when they download our ICC profiles, the files show as Text files. To resolve this, Option + Click on the ICC profile on our website and it should download successfully. ICC profile installation instructions can be found in “Working with Pixel Perfect” available from here