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Apple color sync utility interfering with printing

Forum|Forum|11 months ago
March 8, 2025
2 replies
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When I print from Photoshop and select printer controls Apple's color sync color management app takes over and overrides my selection..

also the app reports I have bad Adobe profile

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/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Color/Profiles/VideoPAL.icc

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/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Color/Profiles/Recommended/image-P3.icc

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I can't stop the color sync app from doing this

macOS

Correct answer Conrad_C

When I print from Photoshop and select printer controls Apple's color sync color management app takes over and overrides my selection..

…I can't stop the color sync app from doing this
By @ABlong

The problem sounds similar to the one reported by many others in this thread, do you think so?

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-print-printer-options-colour-matching-is-not-sticky/idc-p/15186514/page/2

If so, you can add your vote and comment to that thread.

The fact that ColorSync Utility reports problems with some profiles is actually a different problem. That shouldn’t affect a Photoshop print job because none of the profiles listed would be used when printing to a desktop printer. The first profile represents an abstract color space, the three starting with “Video” are for video formats so they would never be used for printing, Image-P3 is a working space, and the last one is a CMYK press space.

Also, those Profile First Aid errors are common, probably happen on all Macs regardless of whether Adobe software is installed, and probably are unrelated to most printing problems or are too minor to affect things. I’ve seen Profile First Aid report those errors for many years, for those profiles plus many more similarly minor errors on other profiles from third-party paper and device companies. But I don’t have printing problems.

NB, colourmanagement

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@ABlong "When I print from Photoshop and select printer controls Apple's color sync color management app takes over and overrides my selection.."

Do you mean that you set the correct printer profile below "Photoshop Manages Color" and, according to your later post, this somehow gets changed to ACES whilst you print? How do you know that happened?

What makes you think colorsync is taking over (by the way Colorsync has been on Macs since at least the late 90's, perhaps earlier. )

As Conrad wrote, the Colorsync utility has reported errors in profiles and been unable to repair them for ages. Furstrating that. The proof is in whether the profiles do their joinb I guess. I normally check for errors in Chromix' Colorthink software - generally it doesn’t show any.

I hope this helps

neil barstow colourmanagement - adobe forum volunteer,

colourmanagement consultant & co-author of 'getting colour right'

See my free articles on colourmanagement online

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ABlongAuthor

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I found a way to turn off ColorSync as I pint.

NB, colourmanagement

Community Expert

Community Expert

Hi @ABlong "I found a way to turn off ColorSync as I pint."

Please let us know how you turned off ColorSync for printing, as others may find that information useful. Personally I've never found colorsync interfered with my prints.

In my experience the colorsync/ printer color options are greyed out in print settings, once Photoshop manages Color is selected. I believe this is achieved by an instruction sent to the manufacturer's printer software from Photoshop to avoid user confusion.

I answered in more detail here on the Lightroom Classic forum

I hope this helps

neil barstow colourmanagement - adobe forum volunteer,

colourmanagement consultant & co-author of 'getting colour right'

See my free articles on colourmanagement online

Help others by clicking "Correct Answer" if the question is answered.

Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here. "Upvote" is for useful posts

Community Expert

Correct answer

Community Expert

When I print from Photoshop and select printer controls Apple's color sync color management app takes over and overrides my selection..

…I can't stop the color sync app from doing this
By @ABlong

The problem sounds similar to the one reported by many others in this thread, do you think so?

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-print-printer-options-colour-matching-is-not-sticky/idc-p/15186514/page/2

If so, you can add your vote and comment to that thread.

The fact that ColorSync Utility reports problems with some profiles is actually a different problem. That shouldn’t affect a Photoshop print job because none of the profiles listed would be used when printing to a desktop printer. The first profile represents an abstract color space, the three starting with “Video” are for video formats so they would never be used for printing, Image-P3 is a working space, and the last one is a CMYK press space.

Also, those Profile First Aid errors are common, probably happen on all Macs regardless of whether Adobe software is installed, and probably are unrelated to most printing problems or are too minor to affect things. I’ve seen Profile First Aid report those errors for many years, for those profiles plus many more similarly minor errors on other profiles from third-party paper and device companies. But I don’t have printing problems.

ABlongAuthor

Participating Frequently

It is and I have now realized that when I print fom PS by using PS controls printing the Mac selects ACES CG Linear as a printer profile. When I looked it up I found out it is not a printer profile but a profile to manage an image. Never had this problem before colorsync. What has Apple done. Now I have to find out which one of 3 Epson printer profiles applie to my printer so I can get a print with colofs that resemble my image.

Community Expert

Community Expert

It is and I have now realized that when I print fom PS by using PS controls printing the Mac selects ACES CG Linear as a printer profile. When I looked it up I found out it is not a printer profile but a profile to manage an image. Never had this problem before colorsync. What has Apple done. Now I have to find out which one of 3 Epson printer profiles applie to my printer so I can get a print with colofs that resemble my image.
By @ABlong

OK, that is something you can probably pin on Adobe, not Apple.

I have seen that too. Here is the background.

If a Mac’s list of ICC profiles includes some pro video profiles like ACES, as far as I can tell those are installed as part of installing Adobe video applications such as Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects. I have those applications installed and see those profiles in the Print dialog box in Photoshop, but other users on this forum have never seen those profiles and I have always thought it's because they’re print/web people who have never installed pro video software.

Here is what I do about it when I print from Photoshop:

1. Before you print, understand in advance which profile you need to select. For me, it’s one of the profiles that starts with the name of my printer, “Epson Stylus Pro 3880…” The rest of the profile name you need depends on the specific ink and paper combination you’re using.

2. When in the Photoshop Print dialog box, after setting Color Handling to Photoshop Manages Colors, click the Printer Profile pop-up menu but don’t select anything yet, leave the menu open.

3. Start typing the name of the profile, because macOS menus support type-ahead. This will scroll directly to the first profile that matches what you’re typing. So by the time I type “Ep” the list has scrolled straight to the Epson profiles.

4. Now that the menu has scrolled to the correct section of the list, you can select the exact profile you need. Either click it with the mouse, or if you want to stay with the keyboard use up/down arrow keys to select, and press Return/Enter to commit.

If you print or click Done, Photoshop should remember which profile you selected, so the next time you print this specific document, your last used profile should be remembered so that it doesn’t start at the top of the list (ACES). If you click Cancel, it won’t remember the settings.