I am just starting to work the Gantry template and every time I change the preset the styling for front-end was lost. I looked at firebug and the compile-css was showing a 403 forbidden error. So then I went to the directory in my server and looked at the file permissions. It looks like when these are created they are given a 0600 permission value. I need for them to have a 0644 permission value in order to work properly. How do I set gantry to create the compile-css files with a 0644 permission?
Gantry doesn't create file permission settings. These default settings are determined by your hoster. As an example the default settings on HostGator for new folders is 0755 and for files it's 0644. Contact your hoster.