CS3 & CS4 are printing darker on 10.6 SL

Question

i upgraded to 10.6 and have had no issues at all except with PS.  i am able to run CS3 with no crashes or problems except 2 things i noticed.  one is that clicking the preview checkbox in a curves palette either affects the image not as expected (barely changes it) or not at all - when the curve is actually applied to an adjustment layer it fully affects it and toggling the layer visibility works as expected.  the second and most disturbing thing is that when i print files from 10.6 they are about .5 - 1 stop darker than they should be as compared to 10.5.  i tried printing from a demo of CS4 updated to 11.0.1 and it's the same.  printing from Lightroom 2.4 prints normally - matching my CS3 - 10.5.8 prints.  i re-calibrated and profiled my printer -  HP z3100  - re-calibrated my display, checked all my color settings, deleted the printer - restarted - and added the printer back.  no change.  anyone else try printing a file and compared it to a 10.5.8 print?
david

Answer 1

thanks, but i did try recalibrating with my eye-one and i also tried the apple built-in calibration just in case the eye-one is not working properly with SL. i was actually surprised at how close i was able to get the display using the apple calibrator compared to the eye-one.  i also tried making new icc profiles for my paper/printer using the built-in spectro on the HP z3100.  my entire workflow is color-managed and i haven't been printing any files that didn't have profiles. just a little background - i've been using photoshop in a production environment since version 2.0.  i'm very aware of the implications of changing color spaces and the importance of calibrating hardware and viewing prints under controlled and consistent light sources.  the display profile should have nothing to do with the printer output - only the display.  you also in theory shouldn't  have to reprofile your printer with a new OS as long as you have working and valid ICC profiles.  afaik the new "default" gamma would be moot if you use a third party calibrator and choose to calibrate for 1.8 instead. in the past i have experimented with many different combos of gamma, white point, and display brightness and have been happy with native gamma, native white point, and a brightness of 90 on my cinema display.  i believe the native gamma for my cinema display was very close to 2.2 to begin with, so a move to 2.2 wouldn't be that big a move for me.
still, a file is a file and should theoretically print the same wether the OS has a display gamma of 2.2 or 1.8.  if 18% gray prints 18% gray on all my other machines and prints at 25% on SL i should think there is another problem. if i had to make a guess, based on all the other problems with SL i have been reading about, i'd say it's to do with OpenGL/OpenCL transition and the way they relate to the video drivers, maybe especially in cases where the cards are not supported by OpenCL.  even though it shouldn't affect output, i think there's a LUT problem.  i still haven't heard and i would love to know if anyone has printed a file on both 10.5 and 10.6 and if they match in density, and what their setup is.
  Model Name: Mac Pro
  Model Identifier: MacPro3,1
  Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Xeon
  Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz
  Number Of Processors: 2
  Total Number Of Cores: 8
  L2 Cache (per processor): 12 MB
  Memory: 6 GB
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT:
  Chipset Model: ATI Radeon HD 2600
  Type: Display
  Bus: PCIe
  Slot: Slot-1
  PCIe Lane Width: x16
  VRAM (Total): 256 MB
  Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
  Device ID: 0x9588
  Revision ID: 0x0000
  ROM Revision: 113-B1480A-252
  EFI Driver Version: 01.00.252
  Displays:
Cinema Display:
  Resolution: 1680 x 1050
  Depth: 32-Bit Color
  Core Image: Hardware Accelerated
  Main Display: Yes
  Mirror: Off
  Online: Yes
  Quartz Extreme: Supported
  Rotation: Supported