Photoshop saving Epson Print Presets

Hello.

I've been dealing with this for fourteen plus years.

I own and run a fine art printing shop.  We have seven printers, six epson inkjet printers and one copier machine.

This single issue has made us stay away from updating our MAC OS over the years and drivers.  When our hands have been pushed to update, we always have had to rebuild our presets and our presets are extensive for all of our printing equipment.

I would love to see a fix for this.  I was going to contact MAC, but have been told it isn't a MAC issue and it's a application / software issue.  I will follow up with Adobe and see if they have a fix for this and repost it here.

After further testing to confirm that it works on macOS 12.4 (earlier test transferred print presets from macOS 12.4 to a Mac running 11.6.7), I’m confident sticking to my story:

Backing up macOS print presets for an Epson printer is possible and does work.

Here is how I did today’s test, which refines the steps a little:

1. Add some print presets for my Epson 3880. One preset is for Ultra Premium Photo Paper Luster through the sheet feeder, which uses Photo Black. The other preset is for Ultrasmooth Fine Art paper through the rear manual feed, which uses Matte Black.

2. macOS updated the file

com.apple.print.custompresets.forprinter.Epson_3880.plist

to include the presets. This is shown when opening the preferences file in a text editor, but I opened it in PList Editor where it is easier to read.

Note: The name of the preferences file depends on the exact name of your printer, with spaces as underscores. The preferences name I used in this thread was for a printer I named “Epson 3880” so if your printer has a different name, your preferences file will be differently named accordingly.

As a reminder, that preferences file is located at

~/Library/Preferences

3. I then deleted that preference file to try and change the presets menu, keeping a backup copy on an entirely separate volume. My earlier reply said a restart is required, but I questioned that today: Does macOS actually reload the print preset menu at login? So instead of restarting the entire Mac, I simply logged out of my account.

4. Upon login, the menu was empty. Removing the preference file did remove the presets from the menu.

5. I copied the backed-up preferences file back into ~/Library/Preferences, logged out, and logged in again.

The presets returned to the menu. They were successfully restored.

I remain convinced that this works. It worked for me months ago, and today it still works on macOS 12.4 Monterey, with the additional knowledge that only a logout/login is required to reload the print menu.

I want to thank all those who replied. Epson support says there is no way to save those custom presets when reinstalling the Epson driver. This is a time-wasting nuisance for users who run into that filter failure issue on a Mac (happened to me at least 4 times now), and so on. 

Yes, there is a way, depending on exactly which settings you’re asking about. Because Photoshop doesn’t have print presets, I’m assuming you might mean:

• macOS print presets

• macOS custom paper sizes

These settings are not stored by Photoshop or Epson. They are features of a standard macOS Print dialog box, so the settings are stored in a macOS preferences file inside your user account.

If you want macOS print presets (see A in the figure below), those are stored in the preferences file:

com.apple.print.custompresets.forprinter.[PRINTER_NAME].plist

If you want macOS custom paper sizes (B), those are stored in the preferences file:

com.apple.print.custompapers.plist

Both of those settings files are stored in the standard macOS user-specific preferences folder:

/Users/[USERNAME]/Library/Preferences/

The user Library folder is hidden by default. If it’s hidden on your Mac, then in the Finder, click the Go menu and then hold down the Option key, and as long as you keep that key pressed, the Library command will appear in the Go menu. If you want the Library folder to always be displayed, then in the Finder with the Home folder open, choose View > Show View Options and enable Show Library Folder.

I have tested this by taking those files and moving them to another Mac, and the presets did transfer. If it doesn’t seem to work:

A) Restart the Mac. macOS doesn’t reload those settings until restarted.

B) Make sure you put the files in the user-level Preferences folder ( /users/Library ), not at the system-wide level ( /Library ).

The reason I figured this out is the last time I bought a new Mac, I wanted to transfer my existing printer settings exactly, and that made me do a little digging and experimenting.

The short answer is no. For use in Photoshop or any other application. Even going back to the older preference doesn't resurrect the presets; they must be 'hidden' deep somewhere only Epson seems to know about. 

The presets you save in the print driver interface [print settings] are saved by Epson into a printer software preferences file.

Adobe cannot save those settings (such as media type/ print resolution etc).

I'm afraid you'll need to ask Epson tech support whether their preference file [containing the presets you saved] can be saved before updating the driver and added back after driver re-installation. 

I hope this helps
neil barstow, colourmanagement net :: adobe forum volunteer:: co-author: 'getting colour right'
google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management