OS X El Capitan

One of Wacom’s guiding principles is loving and inspiring our customers. Our customers are creating the art, movies, games, and other works of imagination that fill our lives with inspiration and enjoyment. Wacom is committed to making products that help put creativity into action.

Wacom does not recommend upgrading to OS 10.11 (“El Capitan”) if using a Cintiq 27QHD or Cintiq 27QHD Touch until an updated driver is released. Wacom expects the driver to be available within one week of Apple’s release of OS 10.11

Wacom continually monitors the compatibility of our products with current operating systems. We have discovered that the Cintiq 27QHD (DTK2700) and the Cintiq 27QHD touch (DTH2700) will not function correctly on the upcoming Apple Mac OS (OS 10.11 El Capitan). Due to a change in the way Apple handles drivers that communicate with the Cintiq27 QHD scalar, an upgrade to OS 10.11 will cause you to lose the ability to use the Wacom Display Settings software to adjust brightness and contrast, or to adjust color profiles. You will also lose the ability to use the Wacom Color Manager software for color calibration of your Cintiq 27QHD.

When available the updated driver can be downloaded from this site.

We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your patience and support.

Note that this issue only affects the Cintiq 27QHD and Cintiq QHD Touch on Mac OS 10.11. Other Cintiqs not affected. Windows operating system is not affected.

Why does the Cintiq 27QHD or Cintiq 27 QHD Touch Not Work with Mac OS 10.11 (El Capitan)?

The Cintiq 27QHD and Cintiq 27QHD Touch uses a sophisticated scalar for color management and other display settings. A special chip is used to communicate with the scalar which requires a driver. Apple’s OS contains a native driver but this does not have all the functions required to communicate with the scalar. As a result, the chip manufacturer provides a custom driver that replaces the stock Apple driver. With the release of Mac OS 10.11 Apple now prevents replacing the stock, driver and therefore communication to the scalar does not function.

Why do other Cintiqs not have this problem?

Only the Cintiq 27QHD and Cintiq 27QHD have the sophisticated scalar for advanced hardware color management.

What are the symptoms?

If you upgrade or install the Mac OS 10.11 the following will occur:

1. When trying to use Wacom Display Settings to adjust brightness, contrast or color options, a warning will appear asking you to restart your computer in order to load a driver. A reboot will not load the driver.
2. When trying to use Wacom Color Manager to color calibrate your Cintiq 27QHD, the software will be unable to establish connection with your display. Pressing “Retry” will not establish the connection.

What workarounds exist for this issue?

There are no simple workarounds at this time.

Advanced users may consider the following. The Cintiq 27QHD and Cintiq 27QHD Touch maintain their settings in hardware, enabling you to change settings in one environment but use the Cintiq in another.

Since the communication issue is not present in older Mac OS versions, you might load Mac OS 10.11 into a separate partition and keep the older partition for running color calibration and/or changing display settings. Since these functions are only done periodically your ability to work in Mac OS 10.11 would be preserved.

A further option would be to change settings on the Cintiq using a Windows OS computer then to re-attach the computer to the Mac running OS 10.11 Neither of these options are ideal but they would work in an emergency to allow adjustments to the Cintiq’s display settings.