#Mac –> PC –> Mac
27 messages in this thread
I have heard of the "debabilizier" (sp?) solution. What is it?
Does it only run on the Mac? Basically, what is the easiest way to
both incorporate Mac image files in a PC environment, and send out
Mac-friendly PC-created image files?
>> I have heard of the "debabilizier" (sp?) solution. What is it? Does
>> it only run on the Mac?
Mac and SGI only. It is a translator between all sorts of graphics file
formats.
Re: debabilizier. Any idea if there are any minimum Mac
hardware requirements to run it? I know almost nothing about the
platform. It may be worthwhile for me to pick up a cheapie, just to
convert files in-house, and make my girlfriend some screensavers.
P.S. Mighty prolific tonight. A one man support crew!
Paul:
Seems like Wade jumped in with his experience. I'm just a PC and UNIX
type of guy, these Apple thingies confuse me! Still can't figure out
how to click on the right mouse button. :^)
There is DeBabelizer and DeBabelizer Lite from Equilibrium. We have
used the regular version (Mac) and it is a very good translation
program. We have never found a listed file type that it could not
handle (some translators say they translate a format but only work
with a subset of that format). We also use it to make catalog
images. It can use Adobe Photoshop filters and has a scripting
built-in for doing a series of operations on an image (or batch of
images). Speed is reasonable on our Quadra800. I think the Lite
version leaves out the scripting and the catalog building.
We often use Image Alchemy from Handmade Software. This is a DOS command line
batch converter. It doesn't convert as many file types or do catalogs or
filtering, but is runs on our faster Pentiums and does most of the operations
we need.
We usually just try to use TIFF format files because they work cross
platform and the compression ratio is good. Our major apps (3DS and
Photoshop) read each other's TIFF files just fine.
Terry Gilbert
Forcade & Associates
—————————————–
Equilibrium
475 Gate Five Rd
Suite 225
Sausolito, CA 94965
415.332.4343 vox
415.332.4433 fax
Handmade Software, Inc.
15951 Los Gatos Blvd., Suite 17
Los Gatos, CA 95032
800 358 3588
408 358 1292
408 358 2694 fax
408 356 3297 BBS
Internet: hsi@netcom.COM
CompuServe: 71330, 3136
Thanks for the info, Terry!
>> We usually just try to use TIFF format files because they work cross
platform and
>> the compression ratio is good. Our major apps (3DS and Photoshop) read each
>> other's TIFF files just fine.
Can I read a Mac Photoshop TIFF file from a Mac-formatted floppy on my PC,
or would the Mac person have to save it out as a PC file/disk (A client did do
the second for me once… worked fine)?
If I render a .TIFF from 3DS to a PC formatted floppy, will a Mac read it?
Paul S.
Paul,
PMJI, but I have had limited but successful experience transferring files
between platforms. I use Mac-based service bureaus for hi-res still image
renderings from PC 3DS. In a nutshell:
1. Buy MacSEE (the absolute best conversion utility between Mac and PC; I did
not have good luck with Mac-in-DOS, even Mac-in-DOS Plus which is supposed to
be able to handle Syquest drives. Reasonable price, even less if you are
upgrading from Mac-in-DOS. I use version 4.0, author is Alan Reeve (on
compuserve 71521,2200) or reevesoft@delphi.com or 803-654-7378. PO Box 1884
Clemson, SC 29633
You get Dos and WIN versions together, handles several types of files, has
automatic transfer, but can be manually set for MacBinary II or BinHex
translations– and data forks –whatever they are!
2. MacSEE will format, read, and write Mac files in Mac format on your PC
floppy or Syquest drive (altho I am beginning to think that the formatting on
the Syquest may be a bit suspect…occasionally won't "mount" (or boot) on some
Macs.
3. COPY the PC file to the Mac formatted media using MacSEE (either dos or
windows). Works just like Windows file manager.
4. Now you have a Mac readable file. I find that *.TIF files are the best
graphics interchange medium (second to GIF in universality, but more powerful).
NOTE: When saving a file in PHOTOSHOP 3.0, save in PC format, otherwise the
subsequent conversion via MacSEE will cause chaos (banding, etc, in resulting
image).
Altho I have heard rave reviews about Image Alchemy, and I think I have a demo
version I downloaded sometime back from the computer graphics forum, I have
never used it since Photoshop 3.0 reads and writes everything I have ever
needed, and MacSee converts whatever Mac stuff I need to write.
In answer to your last question, no, I do not think that a PC formatted floppy
is readable by an ordinary Mac, altho the Power PC should be able to. No
experience with this personally.
Hope this helps.. things are getting more standardized every month it seems, so
hopefully soon this sort of problem will be history.
Lydell
Anderson Animation
Thanks for the great info!
Paul S.
Paul,
You're welcome!
Note that Syquest seems to be the West coast standard, Bernoulli the east
coast, and maybe someday the Iomega Zip or Jaz drives (Jaz sounds esp good at 1
gig removable!)
So far on my search for the holy grail of easy large file transfer between Mac
to PC I have found less than rock solid reliability. I will attach a couple of
alternate opinions on approaching this problem that I received from the Mac
forum…sounds like you may not need to buy MacSEE since PC Exchange can read
IBM formatted disks. I will try tonight and let you know. Here is a note from
a sysop on the Mac Hardware forum I rec'd yest:
>>Lydell,
It does look as if the drivers on the cart are your problem.
There are two ways to handle removeable cartridge hard drives: have a driver
loaded all the time, and load the driver from the cart as needed. Most systems
these days use the second option.
I would suggest reversing your strategy: reading and writing DOS disks on the
Mac is a well-established technique; Apple's own "PC Exchange" control panel
will allow you to mount, read, and write DOS SCSI disks, SyQuest carts, and
floppies. You can toss MacSEE and forget about drivers– just format all the
SyQuest carts on your DOS machine. You can buy PC Exchange as a separate
product but it comes standard with Sys 7.5.<<
{I sent another excerpt from another sysop, but please excuse if this one got
duplicated in the process}
Lydell Anderson Animation
(the excerpted message I promised):
>>Lydell,
It does look as if the drivers on the cart are your problem.
There are two ways to handle removeable cartridge hard drives: have a driver
loaded all the time, and load the driver from the cart as needed. Most systems
these days use the second option.
I would suggest reversing your strategy: reading and writing DOS disks on the
Mac is a well-established technique; Apple's own "PC Exchange" control panel
will allow you to mount, read, and write DOS SCSI disks, SyQuest carts, and
floppies. You can toss MacSEE and forget about drivers– just format all the
SyQuest carts on your DOS machine. You can buy PC Exchange as a separate
product but it comes standard with Sys 7.5. <<
I quote a Mac Sysop:
>At boot time, if there's a Syquest cartridge attached to the Mac, it will read
the driver from that cartridge (and use that driver for any subsequently
mounted cartridges). My guess is that the Macs that will mount the cartridge
were booted with a cartridge containing a driver, so they have one loaded.
It's also possible that some but not all of the Macs have a control panel that
contains a driver for Syquests and will automatically mount anything put into
the drive.
Since you don't know what utility you used to try to format the Syquest on the
Mac, I can't speculate much as to why the format didn't take. About all that I
can say is that in my experience formatters are sometimes a bit flakey; it's
safest to reboot with INITs off before trying to reformat any drive.
Probably your intuition (put a driver on the Syquest) is the best idea. I
haven't had any Syquests for a long time and so can't say what would be most
reliable these days.<<
>> Can I read a Mac Photoshop TIFF file from a Mac-formatted floppy on my PC,
or would the Mac person have to save it out as a PC file/disk (A client did do
the second for me once… worked fine)?
If I render a .TIFF from 3DS to a PC formatted floppy, will a Mac read it?
Paul S. <<
Sorry for the slow response, I've been out of town.
A DOS machine cannot read a mac formatted floppy without extra software. I've
know people who use MacInDOS and another product whoes name I cannot remember.
A Mac comes with FileExchange software that will read and write to a DOS disk.
We use AccessPc so that we can directly mount a DOS disk on the Mac desktop.
There is no real difference between a Mac tiff and a PC tiff. The byte order
is reversed but most programs can detect and deal with the difference. 3DS and
both Mac and Win Photoshops do.
Terry Gilbert
Forcade & Associates
Terry,
PMJI, but by coincidence I just ordered Access PC from Insignia Emulation
Software today. I was referred by Syquest after reciting my woes with PC
Exchange on system 7.5 Mac's difficulty reading PC formatted Syquests. I am
curious to know if you have used Access PC to transfer large files on Syquest
drives (or if anybody has…I have a hard time believing I am the first person
in the world to try this :)….)
BTW, I think the other software you were thinking of was MacSEE which is the
inverse of Access PC and similar to Mac-in-DOS but allows more reliable Syquest
formatting for Mac…I still have occasional Mac machines that refuse to mount
a MacSEE formatted disk so I was casting about for an alternative "just in
case" solution. I hope I have found it with Access PC.
On another subject, the illustration on page 193 of 3D Studio Special Effects
book is awesome…do you happen to know whose handiwork it is?
Lydell
I also used MacSee to transfer files from my PC to Mac and it always gives me
problems. I never succeed in mounting a SyQuest on a mac which I formatted in
Macsee. So, first a format on the mac and then MacSee will recognize the Mac
Syquest. When transferring files for the first time, everything (mostly) goes
well. Just be carefull with subdirectories, because they often get screwed up.
Experience learned me when transferring files with Macsee you better take a
SyQuest which is fresh formatted and thus empty. I suspect macsee to corrupt
the disk after a few writes. So as you see , a much time consuming solution. I
mailed to Reevesoft a few times about this issue, but I suppose they never
heard of what support could mean 🙁 Another solution is the PCexchange
extension, which is built in in the Mac OS System 7.5 Sometimes it works,
mostly not and if it does it's extremely slow with large directories. The last,
and I have heard the best solution is AccesPC. AccesPC would be able to mount a
DOS (FAT) SyQuest right on the Mac, with no problems. Until now I did never
tried it out. I hope to avoid any future problems on this issue by installing a
network between my Mac and PC. If anyone here has any experience on this, I
would appreciate some tips. (TCP/IP – Mactalk ??)
Let me know how accesPC is doing, if it's any good you may pass me some more
info about where to find this utility.
Danny. Belgium
Danny,
I have had EXACTLY the same experience with you except ReeveSoft did support
the software a little…last time I wrote the author was last week and he
replied the same day…said there was a new version out (4.7) but that was all
he could offer. I found the problems with driver corruption or whatever very
frustrating since I think something should work or not work, instead of work
sometimes, when it feels like it, and you don't really care. It was like the
photocopier at work, only breaks down when you really need it.
I am still resisting the idea that I will have to buy a Mac, figure out how to
network it with my PC's and buy separate Syquest drives for each one just so I
can transfer files between them. Seems a little crazy in the Modern world.
There is no excuse for this, but it is the way it is. What kind of files do
you transfer?
I ordered ACCESS PC from Insignia Emulation Software (800-848-7677) I am sorry
I don't have a normal line since I know you can't call the 800 number from
Belgium, but if the program comes next Tuesday as promised, it should have a
number on it, or if you are really anxious I can call them sooner. It was
$49.00 plus tax plus shipping ($61.54 for me).
Lydell
I mostly transfer JPEG or TARGA file formats. I'm not in a rush about this
utility, so take your time. Will you let me know how it's going with AccesPC ??
If it work's well I would appreciate an international phone number or fax
number.
Thanks.
Danny.
>>Will you let me know how it's going with AccesPC ?? If it work's well I would
appreciate an international phone number or fax number.<<
Haven't received it yet, but will let you know certainly. FWIW, I just used PC
exchange successfully today, mounted my PC formatted syquest easily. I think
the secret was turning off all the Mac extensions. However, not all service
bureaus are as willing as this one to bend over backwards for me and dump all
their extensions temporarily (one has them all password protected).
Lydell
>> Terry,
PMJI, but by coincidence I just ordered Access PC from Insignia Emulation
Software today. I was referred by Syquest after reciting my woes with PC
Exchange on system 7.5 Mac's difficulty reading PC formatted Syquests. I am
curious to know if you have used Access PC to transfer large files on Syquest
drives (or if anybody has…I have a hard time believing I am the first person
in the world to try this :)….)<<
We used AccessPC to read DOS syquests until we put the MAC on our network. It
worked fine for large files. We sometimes had trouble when copying 100+ files
at one time. AccessPc would stop and say that there was a disk error on a
file. It would skip the file and we would have to go back and copy that file
separately. Something to do with buffer overflow, I guess. Otherwise AccessPc
was great.
>>BTW, I think the other software you were thinking of was MacSEE which is the
inverse of Access PC and similar to Mac-in-DOS but allows more reliable Syquest
formatting for Mac…I still have occasional Mac machines that refuse to mount
a MacSEE formatted disk so I was casting about for an alternative "just in
case" solution. I hope I have found it with Access PC.
On another subject, the illustration on page 193 of 3D Studio Special Effects
book is awesome…do you happen to know whose handiwork it is?
Lydell <<
That illustration of the Earth and strips of film was done by Tim Forcade and
myself for a magazine article that Tim wrote about digital video editing. Glad
you liked it.
Terry Gilbert
Forcade & Associates
Thanks for the vote of confidence in ACCESS PC…I am anxious for a solution.
I keep putting off networking my PC's, yet alone the nightmare of PC-Mac
network.
Lydell
>> Thanks for the vote of confidence in ACCESS PC…I am anxious for a
solution. I keep putting off networking my PC's, yet alone the nightmare of
PC-Mac network.
Lydell <<
We do a lot of work cross-platform and are very glad we got networked. It
simplifies so many things and allows us to use our workstations more
efficiently. Trading files is nearly painless. BTW it really is best to
dedicate a machine as server. You don't want the overhead of having your
workstation be a server too. As soon as someone trys to access a large file on
your machine, forget about working until it is done.
When we get back from Siggraph we will be converting out Lantastic Net with an
NT net. It looks like it will be relatively painless (yeah, right!). We
have been using Lantastic's LanMac product that works but is inflexible. The
NT server has a Mac server protocal built-in. We are hoping to get our PC's,
Macs, and SGI's all connected through the NT server.
Terry Gilbert
Forcade & Associates
>>When we get back from Siggraph we will be converting out Lantastic Net with
an NT net. It looks like it will be relatively painless (yeah, right!). We
have been using Lantastic's LanMac product that works but is inflexible. <<
Sounds great! Does that mean you will have a slightly used, but tested,
Lantastic product for sale? 🙂
I still haven't broken down and bought a Mac yet. For what I would want, it
will be a bundle. I just used PC exchange almost flawlessly at another store,
on a very fast (don't know the number) Mac with 90mb ram (that's what he said),
and a large monitor. Had to turn off all the extensions to get it to work
though.
But the ASOFT police will complain if I get off the subject too much. Do you
ever have problems with funny colors showing up in transferred files from 3D
Studio to the Mac via Photoshop? I have a graphic (Tif file) that looked
great on my PC in Tif format, also when converted on PC to Photoshop 3.0
format, and also on the Mac monitor, but when printed on the Fiery printer, the
shadows had an awful blue color in them. The background of my image was blue
if that matters.
Thanks again for the info and I look forward to ACCESS PC until I buy a Mac.
Lydell
>> There is no real difference between a Mac tiff and a PC tiff. The byte
>> order is reversed but most programs can detect and deal with the
>> difference. 3DS and both Mac and Win Photoshops do.
This is great news, thanks!
Paul S.
In addition to Greg's info, you can perform processing on images such as
resolution changes (spatial & bit depth) and apply any filters you may have
like KPT's. My experience is w/ the Mac side of things only. WRT which Mac to
get, on our PowerPC's, it takes about 10-20 sec/image to change from 768×512,
24bit to 512×486 16bit; it's been a while since I've used it. Basically I
wouldn't suggest anything less than a Quad, preferrably a PowerPC. And w/ the
new 9500's now available….
>> Basically I wouldn't suggest anything less than a Quad, preferrably a
PowerPC. And w/ the new 9500's now available…. <<
Could you elaborate? Do I really need that much power just to
run Debabilizier? With NT, I'll be doing all of my image processing
on the PC. I just need to translate Mac image files to the PC, and
back again.
>> Do I really need that much power just to run Debabilizier? <<
If that's all you're absolutely going to do, then I'd say no, a Quad would
probably be fine; but if all you want is file conversion, why not just use
Alchemy or Hijaak on your PC?
>> but if all you want is file conversion, why not just use Alchemy or Hijaak
on your PC? <<
Ah-ha! I guess I didn't phrase my initial post correctly. I
would prefer a PC-based solution. Can you tell me more about these
programs? Cost, features, dealer #'s… They can read, write, and
convert Mac image files, as well as reading/writing Mac written
floppy disks?
I'll ask for help from others at this stage: HELP. I haven't used them that
much. I know they exist but I'll have to root around through a few HD's. So
I'll start looking but hopefully someone will be able jump in sooner.