Frequently Asked Questions

Q:

How does one transfer graphic formats, e.g. TIFF and EPS to Macintosh from NEXTSTEP?

A:

Unfortunately, there is no one-word answer to this question. The shortest answer is "Postscript and TIFF are file formats that NEXTSTEP and Macintosh have in common; however, there are problems with TIFF and most PostScript files contain bugs that have to be worked around." In practice, the only thing we've heard where this works 100% is with Adobe Illustrator files (Freehand may work too). Our recommendation is to either use a program that has a file format that NEXTSTEP and Macintosh have in common (such as Virtuoso to Adobe Illustrator) or to use a PostScript editing program such as Tailor, under NEXTSTEP, to add a bounding box to the .eps file (so Macintosh can read it).

The situation in exporting TIFF files from NEXTSTEP to the Macintosh is that you can usually make it work, but due to some shortcomings in NEXTSTEP's TIFF formats, not everything works.

You might try: Save your TIFF file on the NEXTSTEP machine with no alpha channel. Also, you probably want to make sure you leave 8 pixels or so of white space around the edges (keep reading). Now transfer the file to the Macintosh. Depending on what you use to transfer, you need to make sure you use BINARY mode, and you need to set the file type on the Macintosh end to TIFF.

Now open up the TIFF file in Digital Darkroom, or PhotoShop on the Macintosh. It should come up correctly except for a shift (the whole image will be shifted over -- this is why you left some whitespace).

The NEXTSTEP-generated TIFF file will not be opened by Image Studio (they don't support 2 bits/pixel TIFF files in their current release). PhotoShop will open the file, but it won't look right. NeXT Computer knows about the bugs that cause 1) PhotoShop to not open the file, 2) the pixel shift to occur when Digital Darkroom opens the file, and 3) prevent you from transferring TIFF Files with alpha. These (according to NeXT) will be corrected in a future release.

Valid for 2.x



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