I just ran across this page on Apple's website about the upcoming Snow Leopard release and noticed that the default Gamma for the OS will be changed from 1.8 to 2.2. The colorspace in Lightroom is ProPhoto RGB which has a gamma of 1.8. Will this affect Lightroom in any way, or will monitor calibration make this a moot point?

It will make a difference if you print to a recent Epson printer with Advanced B&W Photo mode and use Printer Manages Color.

Otherwise, no difference.

Its also interesting to note that older Epson drivers, when set to Color Controls (which I expect few users here set) have a 1.8 Gamma setting while newer drivers, apparently in anticipation of SL have it now set to 2.2.

Gray Gamma setting in photoshop should be set to 1.8 as Pro Photo is a 1.8 space. Importantly however, the gamma of the monitor has no effect on the gamma of the working space. So it will have no effect on Lightroom.

Yes good point about matching the two when converting between color models.

The change for Apple is apparently only in the display path so aside from that, we really shouldn't have to do much differently than in the past. I've done some extensive tests using application color management, printer color management with more modern Epson printer drivers including its "Color Controls" and everything between 10.5 and 10.6 seem so far to be working correctly including a bug fix using no color management with Epson standard (sRGB) which I suspect few here would use anyway. So its looking good so far.

Any word on when Epson's 10.6 driver will arrive? Will they be out when Snow Leopard arrives or will they come a few weeks later? And will the drivers for the older printers take a bit longer?

I'm hearing from other printer manufacturers that Apple changed things in Leopard at the last minute so they are going to wait and see the final release of Snow Leopard before releasing their official 10.6 compatible drivers. So they'll have their 10.6 drivers available for download appx 2-4 weeks after Snow Leopard.

It's also worth pointing out to people that Snow Leopard's printing structure has some major differences that will break existing printer drivers. People should plan on waiting for 10.6 compatible drivers before making the upgrade if they want to be able to print. PPC apps will need to be upgraded as well.

The current drivers I used for testing worked just fine under SN.

Let's not forget what happened with Leopard's (10.5) release. Updated drivers worked fine on the last beta but the final shipping version of 10.5 made some changes that caused issues with some drivers that previously worked fine.

I don't know what variety of printers you have to test with but several CUPS drivers for other printers are not working in 10.6 and one manufacturer (Canon) is telling people not to expect official 10.6 compatible drivers until 2-4 weeks after 10.6 arrives. I'd hate to see people jump into 10.6 and be frustrated that they can't print from it. Caution is advised and people should test 10.6 on an extra computer before upgrading production workstations.

hello Rodney.

I'm running the Snow Leopard beta, and the Epson drivers for my Epson Stylus Pro 3850 (3800 in the U.S.) do *not* work. Fortunately, my MacBook Pro is still running Leopard, so it's possible to print from there if necessary.

I've asked Epson about the timing of their 10.6 driver releases, but they don't seem to have an answer yet.

Printer companies should be careful this time around. There's more competition now among pro printer manufacturers, and those who diddle-daddle with the 10.6 driver releases may find themselves losing long-term customers ;-)

cheers,
Gregory

What about the 64-bit SN kernel? (Press "6"+"4" during boot)

I agree 100%. I expect that driver developers start developing the new drivers with the developer builds and release them soon after or together with the official OS release. If it takes e.g. Epson (I have a 3800) months to release a 64-bit Snow Leopard driver I will reconsider my brand choice.

(I'm very pleased with the printer hardware. However, for me Epson as a company has been a disappointment: bad German website (search doesn't work, mixed German/English, bad spelling, etc), they spam me every other day with their special offers, official Leopard drivers were late, drivers do not include decent changelogs, etc.). So I'm on the brink anyway. But this is getting off-topic...)

The word from Canon Japan today is that Snow Leopard drivers for x200, x100 and x000 printers will be out by October 9th. The Photoshop plug-ins should be released at about the same time. The new software will be fully 64 bit compatible.

Good stuff.