Apple

I have been 'commanding' for around twelve months now, and I still can't get used to it. As an established Macintosh user, I had become accustomed to saying in my head; 'Apple - C' copy; 'Apple - V' paste and so on, for the other keyboard short-cuts. So when I upgraded my very old Mac for a new Mac last year, I gave up a well-used and tired keyboard for a swish new one. It felt lovely but there was one thing that just wasn't right.

To those who are equally familiar with the old Macs they will recognise too that that little mark of individuality, the apple, had vanished no doubt under the guise of conformity, and been replaced with 'cmd'. It doesn't even sound nice when you try to say it in your head. If anything, cmd when said in your head just makes it feel that the gaffer-tape gag has been put in place to ensure you can't say it out loud. Apple is a much nicer and happier word to say, (and is much more fun when teaching youngsters too) Even if cmd is said out aloud as the full word - command, it has a pompous air about it, and as much as I would like to command my computer to do what it is told, sometimes, I do feel that coercing it with apples was much nicer.

I have to admit, I still hear myself saying 'apple' and get annoyed when I can't find the key, so somehow I don't think I will ever become a commander.

Point the Finger at the Munki

Arrrgh!

I was so sure the issue was resolved but that little munki...

The grey background problem is still happening but only when I use the profiles created by the Colormunki. Using the profiles supplied with the printer, everything works fine, which is why the test print done on plain paper and shown in my last post gave me reason to believe, albeit cautiously, that the conflict was resolved.

Ho, hum.

Apple and Adobe, Canon and Colormunki

Unwanted printed grey background
(A photo of the print)

With the printing of photographs gearing up to full production for my July exhibition, I have been rather concerned that a conflict between my Mac Pro, the new CS5 software, my colour management and my Canon Pro printer still wouldn't be resolved and I would again be wasting precious time, paper and ink. However, I think I can cautiously announce that the conflict has finally been resolved.

It all began last Autumn, when I upgraded both my computer and software but not my printer or colour management. All had been perfect prior to this, then post upgrade, my prints produced through Photoshop were sporting an unwanted ink-wasting grey background. Forums didn't seem to help but during an opportune visit to a Canon trade show in October, I posed the problem to the printer gurus who were equally perplexed. However, isn't there always the over-the-shoulder ear-wigger who has 'the' clever answer but not solution?
"Apple and Colormunki conflict!"

Now, we have to admit that we all do it. Push problems to the back, try to forget about it or work around it, and it might just go away because we don't want to be bothered with it. That was me! I did manage to work around it but it certainly didn't go away as back in January, I had another reason to have a go at trying to resolve it. This time I approached the Colormunki crowd who, after a lot of 'It's not us', sent me an email with a suggestion to change some profile settings but with no apparent success, yet anyway. I continued to work around it - until today, when I finally resolved to fix this frustrating issue once and for all. After all, eight months should be plenty of time to fix a problem- shouldn't it?

Who to try this time? Adobe. With nothing readily available on the forums, I grabbed the phone as I had the need to talk to a real person. After half an hour of music, Max was finally there to help me. She logged into my computer (big brother?) to watch how I sent work to print, thought for a while and suggested 'Try-this' (no.1)
No change to the print.
Then 'Try-this' (no.2)
Still no change.
So, after 1 hour and 8 minutes, Max was terribly sorry but there was no obvious solution to the problem. "Perhaps you should phone Apple?"

Did I phone Apple? Well, a dig around in an obscure corner of their on-line support page threw up the whole assortment of printer drivers coupled with reference to OSX Snow Leopard, and a disclaimer regarding third-party software. Hmmm, an issue here?

Five minutes later, driver downloaded, computer restarted, I tentatively fed yet another piece of paper into the printer, and 'hey presto', no grey background.

I'm certainly not going to waste time pointing any fingers - I've got around forty prints in a queue now.
Just hope my ink doesn't run out.

Finally, no grey background
(A photo of the print of the photo of the print!)

(This is for all those out there who might be suffering a similar issue right now and in the hope it might just help)