Snow Leopard Problems Begin Surfacing

G. Dan Mitchell, we’ll call him Dan, likes to take photos. Oh how he LIKES to take photos and they are some seriously awesome photos (checkout his work at gdanmitchell.com). Dan and I have been talking back and forth on Twitter about things we’ve noticed in the latest version of Apple’s OS X operating system Snow Leopard. I haven’t really noticed anything weird, well except for mail being REALLY stringent on authentication, but then I read Dan’s blog post this morning. He can’t print.

This is a minor problem for most people but when you’re a photographer or a designer, well printing is something you just can’t live without.

The first problem I encountered was that the Epson 2200 sitting next to my computer no longer appeared in the the printer dialogs in Photoshop. Knowing that Snow Leopard supposedly will add new drivers as needed I tried to use the 10.6 preference panel to add drivers for the 2200. No luck ? the system didn?t even see the connected printer.

I finally went to the Epson web site and followed their instructions which include:

Install Rosetta from Apple install disk.
Download the most recent pre-10.6 drivers for my printer and install.
Download and run their updater for drivers under 10.6
Done. Now I can see the printer via its Firewire connection? but not, as far as I can tell, via its USB connection.

So, I fire up Photoshop and try to make a test print using a black and white image. Things seem to be going more or less OK as I work my way through the usual setup and print process: Photoshop manages colors and all. But the print emerges looking very green and way too dark. I attempt to download and reinstall the Epson profile for the Epson Premium Lustre paper I?m using at the moment. Installer downloads? but won?t run.

I do a restart and try the profile installer one more time ? still no go. Since the photo was one that I had not previously printed I decide to remove one variable and instead print a color image that I had successfully printed right before installing the update to OS X. Again? very greenish and far too dark. (G. Dan Mitchell)

One of the things that I’ve noticed is FTP droplets from Transmit no longer work. Not sure if this is because Transmit is still 32bit or if the protocol is being blocked or what. The droplets open and act like they’re transferring but nothing gets moved to the server. Mail is also constantly warning of certificates, even after you hit OK and can’t figure out which mailbox to send through if you have multiple (even with a default set).

Hopefully Dan will get his problems worked out soon. Until then there is no way I’d recommend installing this on a production machine, which I already have. Wait a week or three until all the quirks and bugs are worked out.