P: Print - Printer options - Colour Matching is not sticky

[DanielBoston]

Since I updated to MacOS 14.6, printing from Lr Classic to my Epson SCP800 has beeen a nightmare. The printer driver seems to have become completely unreliable. 

1. When I select a profile in Lr, the printer driver has color matching set to Epson Color Controls, and not (as it should) to Color Sync. Sometimes the driver opens with Color Sync correctly set, but then changing any other setting (eg, paper type) causes it to revert to Epson Color Controls.

2. When I make changes to the print settings (eg, changing paper type) and save a preset, the change is not present in the preset. This problem does NOT seem to occur when using the print driver from Apple Preview.

I have

-- reinstalled the Epson drivers

-- deleted and readded my printer

-- deleted my Lr preferences (but I'm confused about this because moving the com.adobe.LightroomClassicCC7.plist file out of ~/Library/Preferences doesn't seem to change anything in my Lr setup, even if I restart my machine to clear caches--and no, I don't have "store preferences with catalog" set).

My current workaround is to

-- set Printer Manages Colors in Lr

-- set the paper ICC profile in the driver using Color Sync manually

-- reset the paper type every time I print, since the preset can't seem to save it

It seems unlikely that I'm the only person experiencing these problems but I'm surprised to see nobody else mention them. Any advice would be very welcome.

[moved from bugs to discussions according to the community rules - Mod.]

[DanielBoston]

Following up my previous message: it's even worse than that. I've just confirmed the following behavior. I'm in a state in which if I open the printer driver to print and click on color matching and print settings, and make no changes, then the results that I get depend on which order I select the two in. If I select color matching first, it's set to Color Sync and the paper type is set (incorrectly) to glossy; if I select print settings first, the paper type is set (correctly) to matte, but then color matching is set to Epson Color Controls.

[DanielBoston]

Seems like this is issue has come up multiple times before and it seems not have been resolved. See for example

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/macos-ventura-lightroom-classic-printin...

A common observation is that the printer driver behaves badly only when used in Lightroom; the problems don't arise in Apple Preview, eg.

[DanielBoston]

Another observation that suggests there's some very screwed up code running here. The behavior I observed above (in which checking color matching and print setting shows different values depending on which you check first) only occurs if after you check the value you click "cancel". If you click "ok", the values seem to be stable. This is bizarre, because it should of course make no difference if you haven't changed the setting. 

[DanielBoston]

After some experimentation, I seem to have found a reasonable workaround:

1. Create and change presets only in Apple Preview, even if you use them in Lr.

2. When you examine a print driver setting in Lr, always click OK and not Cancel if you don't want to change it.

3. Never click on the Color Matching dialog: that will switch away from ColorSync. To check color matching settings, use Printer Settings | Advanced Color Management instead.

I now suspect that my problem wasn't the MacOS update and that I just checked Color Matching and hadn't done so for a while. And then I reinstalled the Epson driver, and Lr won't let you create presets, so that led to all these problems.

Hopefully Adobe will fix this mess soon.

[DanielBoston]

Lightroom Classic Version: 13.5

OS Version Number: Sonoma 14.6.1

Steps to reproduce:

1. Select an image in Library module

2. Press Cmd-P to open Print module

3. Choose a profile under Color Management

4. Click on Printer and select a printer (in my case, Epson SCP800)

5. Click Printer Options | Color Matching: shows Color Sync

6. Press Cancel

7. Click Printer Options | Color Matching again: shows Epson Color Controls

These instabilities do not appear to happen when the driver is used in Apple Preview.

This is just one example of a host of apparent bugs; see my earlier post that was moved by the moderator to discussion:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/epson-print-driver-stopped-working-from...

[DanielBoston]

<Ancient Tag Removed> can you explain why you moved this out of bugs? You moved the whole thread, so I assumed you wanted a bug report in the required format. I added that, but then you moved that too.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

@DanielBoston 

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-do-i-post-in-discussions-or-bugs/idi-p/13691... 

[DanielBoston]

Yes, I read that. Which part of it is relevant here? 

You're surely not saying that this is user error and that the behavior is expected?

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

@DanielBoston 

"that this is user error." No one but you has said that.
"that the behavior is expected." No one but you has said that. 

"I assumed you wanted a bug report in the required format." That is your inference - it was not implied. 

Paraphrasing: "I updated my Mac OS, and now my Epson printer driver is behaving badly"

The reproduction steps provided did not cause the failure on my Mac systems (I have several machines on that OS and have a P800 next to my desk). 

Your post was moved to Discussions because it is not a verified bug (as outlined in the post I linked previously).  Without reproducible steps, it is hoped that the increased visibility of being in Discussions may find someone else with similar hardware who can reproduce and, hopefully, provide the missing pieces to confirm this as a bug. Or, better yet, someone will have seen a sympathetic failure and can advise on a resolution. 

Until then, this thread belongs in Discussions. When/If that changes, it will be moved back to Bugs. 

[DanielBoston]

This post reports the same bug

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/printing-with-icc-profile-from-lrc-look...

and attributes it to an Epson printer driver bug:

Press the OK button to close the dialog and save your choices. NEVER use the Cancel button if you are checking that the options are what you want. Cancel does not leave the settings unchanged. Cancel RESETS the options to the default values, which in this case is not what I wanted. This seems to be an Epson print driver problem, but whatever. Just don't press the Cancel button.

Thanks to Victoria Bampton, Lightroom Queen, for pointing me to this post.

And there are other posts reporting that saving print presets in Lr doesn't work and recommending you do it in Preview (don't have time to dig them up right now).

[jlehet]

This week I wasted an enormous amount of time, a bunch of ink, and some expensive paper with this. In checking out various soft proofing options, when I checked "Preserve RGB Numbers" in the photoshop soft proofing of a file I saw, "This is exactly what my print looks like."  (It sucks). This seems to mean that Lightroom is completely ignoring the paper profile and instead is sending straight RGB values to the printer. I'm runniing Sonoma 14.6.1. I hadn't printed in a while, so I reinstalled the printer driver several times, etc. I really like to print from Lightroom and not Photoshop and certainlyl not Apple Preview. Or I would like to print from Lightroom if it worked.

[jlehet]

I should add I'm trying to print to an Epson Surecolor P7000 with of course the latest driver.

[DanielBoston]

This could be the same bug I was hitting. Here is what I recommend you try:

1. In the print module of Lr, select your paper profile under Color Management

2. Click Printer, and then click once on Printer Options | Color Matching. It should show Color Sync selected and the controls greyed out. Now (very important!) click OK, not Cancel, and you can go ahead and print. If instead it shows Epson Color Controls, then click Color Sync and select the paper profile and press OK, and then go ahead and print.

[Vidhya S]

Hi DanielBoston,

Thanks for reporting this issue. We are able to reproduce this issue in-house ( "Color Matching options not being sticky"). We are looking into this.

Thanks,

Vidhya S

[DanielBoston]

Good to hear, @Vidhya S . Can you replicate the presets-not-saving bug too?

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Adding @Vidhya S  Bug and updating status

[Shipp]

Same, I'm experiencing unpredicatble behaviour with Epson SCP800 and Mac 14.6

[Hey Alissandra]

I am having similar problems with Photoshop and my Canon Pixma Pro-200 after the 14.6.1 update. It doesn't seem to matter what printer or application you are using, the stability of printer settings is wildly problematic. Any help or workaround would be deeply appreciated. 

[Shipp]

@Vidhya S thank you this is absolutely killing my workflow now. When can we expect an update?