Frequently Asked Questions about Color It! 4.5 for Mac OS X

Frequently Asked Questions about Color It! 4.0 for Mac OS 9/Classic

Frequently Asked Questions about Enhance for Mac OS 9/Classic

Frequently Asked Questions about Digital Darkroom

Color It! 4.5 for Mac OS X

Q: When I try to launch Color It! 4.5, I get an error message that says “The registration information in the Color It! application has been corrupted. Please reinstall Color It! from the original disk.”

A: If you try to run Color It! 4.5 from the CD-ROM, you will get this error. Color It! 4.5 cannot be run from a CD-ROM, as your Registration information needs to be stored in the program, and new data cannot be written to a CD-ROM. Drag the Color It! 4.5 program icon to your hard drive, and launch it from there.

Q: Does Color It! 4.5 work with Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)?

A: Yes.

A couple of users have reported Color It! unexpectedly quitting after updating to Mac OS X 10.5. As Apple advises, “Permissions problems sometimes happen after you update your system or install new software.” If you experience this, run Repair Disk Permissions. This functions in many ways like Rebuild Desktop did under Mac OS 9 and before, and can correct a number of mysterious problems on your Mac.

In the Finder under the Go menu, choose the Utilities folder. In the window that opens, locate and launch the Disk Utility program (see below). Click on the name of your hard drive in the column to the left. To the right, click on the “First Aid” tab if it is not highlighted. Click on the Repair Disk Permissions button below and let it run. This may take some time depending on when permissions were last repaired. When it is finished, you will see “Permissions repair complete” at the bottom of the text area above the button. Quit Disk Utility and launch Color It! again.

Running “Repair Disk Permissions” in Apple’s Disk Utility program can correct a number of mysterious problems with your Mac.

Q: Color It! 4.5’s “Live” preview for filters does not seem to work with Mac OS X 10.5?

A: Apple has apparently made some low-level changes in the Mac operating system version 10.5 and above (Leopard) that interferes with this functionality. An updater for this will be posted on our downloads page when this is corrected.

To exit the filter dialog box, type the Command-period keyboard shotcut.

To change any filter back so the filter’s Live preview is not checked, follow the procedure described on pages 7-8 of the User Manual for installation of Photoshop-compatible plug-ins. In the “Color It! Stuff” window, simply drag the Color It! 4.5 Prefs file to your Trash and empty the Trash, then close the window. The next time you launch Color It! 4.5, it will create a new Prefs file with default settings.

Color It! 4.0 for Mac OS9/Classic

Please be aware that Apple no longer supports Classic mode AT ALL under Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). Upgrade to Color It! 4.5 (click here to purchase and download).

Q: When using Color It! 4.0 (or previous versions) in Classic mode under Mac OS X, sometimes text entered does not appear. The cursor moves as letters are being typed, but no text shows.

A: Problems with “invisible” text are caused by third-party extensions installed in your copy of OS 9.x that launches when the Classic mode starts up under OS X. A great number of third-party add-in extensions (those not made by Apple) will not work in Classic, and in some cases will prevent Classic mode from launching or even go so far as to cause it to crash during its start-up process!

Go to System Preferences->Classic and click on the Advanced tab, and from the pop-up choose "Turn Off Extensions.” This turns off all non-Apple third party control panels and extensions.

Or (if your particular Mac allows it) you can re-boot in the System 9 used for Classic mode, choose Apple Menu->Control Panels->Extension Manager, and from the pop-up menu, choose “Mac OS 9.x All.” Then re-boot back in OS X once again.

Enhance 4.0 for Mac OS 9/Classic

Please be aware that Apple no longer supports Classic mode AT ALL under Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard).

Q: Will a Mac OS X-native version of Enhance be produced?

A: We are in the process of evaluating Enhance to see if there is sufficient interest to produce a Mac OS X-native version.

Q: What are the differences between Color It! and Enhance?

A: The major differences are that Color It! is Mac OS X-native; Enhance is still for Mac OS 9/Classic. Enhance has layers capability, while Color It! does not.

Color It! has linear and radial gradients; Enhance has linear gradients only. Color It! lets you create and edit animated GIF images. Color It! has the option to save clipping paths when saving in the PostScript file format and save alpha channels in the PICT file format.

Enhance has a Layers palette and Layer Mover tool, and can open layered Photoshop format files with the layers intact. Enhance also has a Ruler and Angle tool, a Replace Color filter, supports drag-and-drop, and permits viewing a Converted RGB color view for CMYK images. Enhance has a Preview in Web Browser and Save HTML Tag to Clipboard commands, displays download time estimates in the Get Info window; and has color selectors in the Extrude & Dropshadow dialog boxes.

Q: When using Enhance 4.0 (or previous versions) in Classic mode under Mac OS X, sometimes text entered does not appear. The cursor moves as letters are being typed, but no text shows.

A: Problems with “invisible” text are caused by third-party extensions installed in your copy of OS 9.x that launches when the Classic mode starts up under OS X. A great number of third-party add-in extensions (those not made by Apple) will not work in Classic, and in some cases will prevent Classic mode from launching or even go so far as to cause it to crash during its start-up process!

Go to System Preferences->Classic and click on the Advanced tab, and from the pop-up choose "Turn Off Extensions.” This turns off all non-Apple third party control panels and extensions.

Or (if your particular Mac allows it) you can re-boot in the System 9 used for Classic mode, choose Apple Menu->Control Panels->Extension Manager, and from the pop-up menu, choose “Mac OS 9.x All.” Then re-boot back in OS X once again.

Digital Darkroom for Mac OS 9/Classic and Windows

Please be aware that Apple no longer supports Classic mode AT ALL under Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard).

Q: Does Digital Darkroom for Windows work in the Vista operating system?

A: Yes.

Q: (WINDOWS ONLY) When I save an image in JPEG format the quality seems to be low regardless of the quality setting I choose.

A: The JPEG plug-in in an older version of Digital Darkroom did not properly apply the Quality setting chosen when saving an image in the JPEG file format (regardless of the Quality setting chosen, the image was always saved in Low Quality).

In order to use the file “JPEG.8bi”, place it in the directory Darkroom:DDStuff:Plugins. If you are asked to confirm the replacement (“Would you like to replace the existing file ‘JPEG.8bi”’) click Yes.

If the Digital Darkroom program is running, exit the program and restart it. Now when you go to save an image and choose “JPEG (*.jpg)” under “Save as type” the JPEG Options dialog will open, and the quality setting chosen will be properly used. The correct JPEG plug-in may be downloaded here.