OS X El Capitan

[simonsp]

...For w3stie and others looking for Photoshop/Illustrator alternatives, check out Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer. They come from Serif, who've been leaders in graphics apps for PC for years. Remarkably low-cost, seemingly extremely capable and well worth a look. They're also currently developing Affinity Publisher, a page-layout app that will compete head-on with InDesign; it's due out in 2016. I was an early beta-tester of PagePlus many years and versions ago and if it's of the same quality as that, or better, it'll be a winner.

They look to be an excellent set of applications. I've been dithering between Capture One, Photoshop Elements and iPhoto for my various editing needs but I've been looking for something that I can use exclusively. I'm not keen on the Adobe licensing model so this looks like a viable option. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[imwjl]

They look to be an excellent set of applications. I've been dithering between Capture One, Photoshop Elements and iPhoto for my various editing needs but I've been looking for something that I can use exclusively. I'm not keen on the Adobe licensing model so this looks like a viable option. Thanks for the heads up.

Try different products before committing. Know that some with a cloud and hybrid model give you your environment mobile and on x systems.

Also spend time figuring out if you want or need software that's great editing per pixel, one that leaves the original file alone, and something more about managing and correcting images than altering them. Sticking to one brand, Lightroom is really fast and effective with basic corrections, vs Photoshop ideal for layers and per pixel edits.

 

[still_fiddlin]

I'm sticking with Yosemite. Had some emails about h/w I use not being compatible - may have been fixed by now, but for my mid-2010 MacBook Pro, I think I've gone as far as I need to. Keeping my 2 year newer Mini the same just for sanity, thought it would probably be fine.

For photo folks, I tired Adobe Creative Cloud ($10/*year* through school where I work p-t), but found it to be an absolute pig with a ton of crap in the background even if only using one app. Honestly can't remember if it was the Windows or Mac install that made me pull the plug, but gave up. For my strictly amateur tinkering, I'm finding Pixelmator has what I need, and getting by with GIMP on the PC (different, Win10 induced prob there).

 

[Chud]

I'm going to make a fresh clone of my current drive onto an external and then boot from the external and do the update. My main concern is CS6 as others here, and I'm interested to see if the legacy Java update does the trick. Will post back up in a bit.

 

[stratology]

I upgraded as soon as all my audio apps and plug ins were compatible. Mostly positive experience, I like El Cap.

Finder can still be iffy, like in every single OS X release.
Expose/Spaces is still not as good as it was in 10.6, and some design decisions (displays desktop names rather than icons in Spaces view) don't make sense.
Pinned tabs in Safari are great. Chrome had them for some time, but the Safari implementation is better.
The 'repair permissions' feature in Disk Utility was removed. Finally.
The new system font looks a little better than the previous one.

El Cap is primarily a stability update, like 10.6, not a feature heavy update. Good.

 

[stratology]

Just upgraded my iMac ( mid 2010 ) to El Capitan. I warned me that Photoshop CS2 and Adobe updater would not work because it was a PowerPC app? I figure I'll find another way to do photoshop.

Try Pixelmator. It's a high quality app that does almost everything that Photoshop does, at a fraction of the price.

 

[omahaaudio]

...For photo folks, I tired Adobe Creative Cloud...

I'm a professional photojournalist and I've found that Photoshop Elements (currently version 14) offers almost anything a photographer needs for less than $100 (I paid $59 for it, on sale).

I keep a copy of Photoshop CS5 on my computer but rarely use it.

 

[bluesfordan]

I just updated my main surfing machine tonight. My only complaint was while it was downloading, I had no visual cue to the status of the operation, a pretty poor oversight by Apple IMO. I went away for a couple of hours and came back to it being ready to install after I approved the standard boiler plate agreements and admin password et al. That took about another hour.

So far, I'm not noticing any difference, really. I haven't done much of anything yet and I really don't do a whole lot beside journals and spreadsheets. I will check out some of the other features tomorrow and maybe then I'll see the differences.

 

[Chud]

I had to reauthorize a few licenses and download legacy java but everything seems to be working. My CS6 suite is all good to go, all of the MS Office 2011 is good, all of my plugins loaded into Logic Pro, etc...

 

[Tony474]

I'm not keen on the Adobe licensing model so this looks like a viable option. Thanks for the heads up.

You're welcome. Adobe software has been the industry standard for graphics pros for years - and don't they know it! I'd guess that someone high up in Adobe must have been a cavalry officer in a previous existence, because they sure know how to charge. In fact, in a particular article I read recently, it was said bluntly that "Adobe taxes its users".

Now I need both vector and bitmap creation and editing software for my work, which usually means Illustrator and Photoshop plus Acrobat Pro. InDesign I can live without; I'm a QuarkXPress devotee from way back. Now, while I do have CS6, I'm not minded to go down the CC subscription route; the cost is not justifiable for my now declining business. So that's why I'm going to take a long, hard look at the Affinity apps specifically developed for Mac OS X Lion and higher; if they live up to the claims they'll seemingly do most if not all of the job nicely.

 

[Tony474]

My main concern is CS6 as others here, and I'm interested to see if the legacy Java update does the trick.

Yes, it does - see my post 38. Business as usual with CS6.

 

[Chud]

Yes, it does - see my post 38. Business as usual with CS6.

Thanks, I'd heard some conflicting findings about how well the legacy java worked so was hesitant to just update without testing on an external clone first. Ship shape now.

 

[Chud]

Located an interesting hardware issue with El Capitan. My MOTU audio interface is incompatible currently (beta drivers out) with USB audio, and apparently this is or was a fairly widespread issue for other interfaces as well. I can just switch to the firewire connection and it's fine, but for those who use USB audio connections for recording best make sure yours has updated drivers before switching over to El Cap, or that you have either a firewire or thunderbolt alternative.

 

[stratology]

My MOTU audio interface is incompatible currently (beta drivers out) with USB audio

Yeah, MOTU (link removed) about that. They have released several versions of the USB beta drivers over the last few weeks, my Fastlane USB MIDI interface started working with the second beta.

 

[orangedrop]

If any one is running Pro Tools, you might want to hold of on "Upgrading".

You will be out of luck, and all sorts of interesting things are happening according to the reports I'm getting from folks calling for help.

If you need to revert back to your older OS, here is how to do it and DO NOT open Time Machine, your Mac will overwrite the New OS to the backup and there are other things that apparently have their coding effected, so keep that puppy turned off.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314

AFAIK, Yosemite is the highest OS supported by Avid at the moment as well as several other plugin manufacturers.

I have an extra drive which is 2TB and called "The Clone Drive", on which lives Carbon Copy Cloner and a complete clone of the working System Drive.

Whenever it is time for an update, upgrade, security install, anything that might make things hokey, The Clone Drive becomes the guinea pig.

If things go awry, the drive gets formatted, CCCloner is reinstalled and the Working Drive is rewritten to it once again.

If things are Kosher, The System Drive gets updated and well, the rest is obvious to you folks so I'll stop yammering.

 

[stratology]

If you need to revert back to your older OS, here is how to do it and DO NOT open Time Machine, your Mac will overwrite the New OS to the backup and there are other things that apparently have their coding effected, so keep that puppy turned off.

Wrong.
When you restore from Recovery, you do not choose the option to reinstall OS X, you choose the option to restore from a Time Machine back up. You can choose the date of the back up that you restore from, so it's perfectly ok to have back ups of the new OS, you can still choose a date from when the previous OS was installed, and it will recover the old OS with all content.

(link removed) are Apple's instructions for Yosemite, the process is the same for El Cap.

 

[orangedrop]

Wrong.
When you restore from Recovery, you do not choose the option to reinstall OS X, you choose the option to restore from a Time Machine back up. You can choose the date of the back up that you restore from, so it's perfectly ok to have back ups of the new OS, you can still choose a date from when the previous OS was installed, and it will recover the old OS with all content.

(link removed) are Apple's instructions for Yosemite, the process is the same for El Cap.

According to Apple support technician, you can not revert OS backwards from Time machine directly.

This sounds very strange to me, however I have been told the same thing from several people who "upgraded" to Mavericks, me included.

I took a trip to The Apple Store and spent a couple hours speaking to a few of their high level techs and the consensus was, "well, you could always buy the Pro Tools Upgrade!".

I upgraded the main system to Mountain Lion 10.8.x and cloned that system over Yosemite.

With all the plugins and software in the rig, and the fact that you are allowed to reinstall those licenses once a year for free if something catastrophic happens, installing every upgrade as they come along and then seeing if Apple's guesses about reverting back from a buggy system or worse, with the possibility of paying thousands in licenses for software I already own, is the reason you don't see engineers "Riding The OS Wagon Train".

We tend to wait till everything is stable for everybody and might just be a bit behind the latest.

I'm going to post a funny story about a phone call to The Apple Store today,
so it might explain my trepidation even though a Mac Addict.

 

[stratology]

According to Apple support technician, you can not revert OS backwards from Time machine directly.

You can't install a clean older system from a TM backup, but you can make a full restore to the older system & your data. I did this only a few weeks ago, for a friend, so this definitely still works the same as in previous versions of OS X.


Here is another article from Apple that describes the process:

(link removed)

The process is identical for El Capitan.



Regarding Protools: Protools is never up to date with current OS X versions, and, AFAIK, demands very specific older OS versions to work correctly. Other DAWs, like Logic or DP, and many good plug in manufacturers, keep their products up to date, so they work with current OS versions. Quality products...

 

[orangedrop]

You can't install a clean older system from a TM backup, but you can make a full restore to the older system & your data. I did this only a few weeks ago, for a friend, so this definitely still works the same as in previous versions of OS X.


Here is another article from Apple that describes the process:

(link removed)

The process is identical for El Capitan.



Regarding Protools: Protools is never up to date with current OS X versions, and, AFAIK, demands very specific older OS versions to work correctly. Other DAWs, like Logic or DP, and many good plug in manufacturers, keep their products up to date, so they work with current OS versions. Quality products...

alright, thanks for that...
It is now apparent where the confusion is coming from!

The last phone call from a friend had the tech lady telling him his Time Machine would erase his data if he had saved any new system data to it because the new coding changes all the old data.

WHAT?!?!

Obviously if you save any new session data in Mavericks or Yosemite and revert to Mountain Lion you will lose anything you have saved after the date you revert to.

However unless I'm mistaken, you don't lose that until you do the next backup to the TM and overwrite the new data, of course that session might not run in the older OS, but the audio files, images, video stream?

What happens with that data, is that backwards compatible WAV for WAV, RAW for RAW?

Not sure I'd say Pro Tools is behind the times now.

They were one of the very first, then sat on their "Pro laurels" for too long while not supporting those of us who supported them in the studio while a lot of serious competition showed Digidesign how it was done...

Then they had to catch up, finally allowing people to even use third party converters, finally.

BTW, nice track on your site *thumbs*

 

[orangedrop]

And then there's this...

Looks like going back to Mountain Lion is not a straight shot.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6604300?tstart=0