macOS Ventura + Lightroom Classic Printing Is Broken

[hr114]

macOS Ventura 13.5 / Lightroom Classic 12.4 / Camera Raw 15.4 / Canon imagePROgraf PRO-300

Just to save you any unecessary breath or time: I've got 25+ years of printing in profiled & calibrated workflows – from the offset printing days through today. So, I'll know what you're talking about, and you can assume I know how to reboot a computer or find an ICC profile.

Okay, printing from Lightroom used to be one of my favorite things to do before macOS Ventura. I actually looked forward to printing sessions because we seemed to have reached the pinnacle of digital photos to analog prints in a one-stop workflow – never having to leave Lightroom at all. Plus, being able to create "Saved Prints" and know that everything was going to just work months later, that was the best feature of the Print module yet! But all that was before macOS Ventura came out. Since then, printing from Lightroom has been a disaster. Tons of wasted time, materials, and patience.

But I don't think it's just macOS Ventura, nor just Lightroom Classic. It's when the two of them meet where things break. And, they're breaking bad.

I'm using a Canon imagePROgraf PRO-300, and can print just fine using ICC profiles from Canon's own Professional Print & Layout app. And, like everyone else, I can print just fine using ICC profiles when using Photoshop. Heck, I can even get macOS's own Preview.app to print correctly with a Color Sync profile – and right from its own print dialog no less! I simply cannot use ICC profiles from Lightroom Classic anymore. Following the suggestion to just double-check the print dialog for each and every print worked for one printing session, and then never again. So as so many of you have also seen, it's total voodoo now what might work and when it might work in Lightroom on macOS Ventura.

So, I sure hope others chime in here if they're still stuck, and really hope Adobe looks into this issue – it's been documented since macOS Ventura came out a year ago! And only Adobe posesses the clout to get Apple to work with them on any bugs from Cupertino.

[alanl8]

The paper sizes issue doesn't just affect Lightroom but apps from many vendors and it isn't consistent across a vendors' products, e.g. I don't believe Photoshop is affected even though Lightroom is, Microsoft Word is affected and even some Apple apps but this fix definitely needs to come from Apple and apparently the release candidate for MacOS 14.5 resolves it.  The official release should be due soon, so hopefully at least that issue will be resolved.

[DaveLInSF]

I just ran into this problem with LrC 14.0.1, MacOS Sonoma 14.6.1 and Canon Pro-300 printer. Has anyone tried MacOS Sequoia 15 to see if the bug was fixed there?

[hr114]

I tried it right away, but alas the bug persists. If however I output the photo to a TIFF file and then print in Canon's own Professional Print & Layout software, it prints just as expected – honoring the ICC profile chosen for the target printer/paper. Infuriating!

[alanl8]

I've not dared upgrade to Sequoia yet but useful to know that the issues still exist (albeit disappointing and rather predictable, given the lack of attention this has been given over the last couple of years) .  Having moved to using Epson Print Layout, instead of Lightroom's Print module, I've had no issues and it works every time (like Canon Professional Print & Layout) and I'll continue to use this approach when I eventually upgrade to Sequoia.

[hr114]

I think you can safely upgrade to Sequoia, it just won't fix the macOS<->LrClassic printing problems. I wish Adobe & Apple would get together for lunch or something and work on this – it's been broken for two years now! I really miss the LR Print module workflow. It was neat & tidy, and the ability to creave "Saved Prints" was a huge time and headache saver. I still use the Print module for non-critical stuff, but it only "works" with "Printer Manages Colors" which is far from ideal, and certainly not a full managed, ICC profile eneabled color workflow.

[MarkDS]

This is not good news. I was informed by a usually reliable source (who will go unidentified to protect the innocent) that the cause of this problem is a MacOS API and tbat Apple was committed to fixing it with the latest OS update. That this did not happen is to say the least disappointing. Needless to say all this happens in a fog of opacity because none of them are prepared to explain anything in specific detail and provide a reliable assurance of an ETA for a fix. It is dismal industry performance. Thank goodness Epson Print Layout and the Canon equivalent provide a good workaround. But I would still like to be able to print directly from Lr, as I'm sure thousands of others are too. As individual consumers we have no clout with Apple, but I would hope a company the size of Adobe does and could intervene with them once and for all. Meanwhile, we have two options: (1) Stick with using EPL, or (2) buy a cheap Windows laptop and use Windows for printing. The Windows OS has for the most part been more user-friendly, more consistent and more reliable over time when it comes to support of printing with the printer manufacturers' drivers through Adobe Lr..

[Bob Somrak]

But Apple always gives you new, all important, Emojis instead not breaking the basics.

[martinberg]

I am running Mac OS Sequoia 15.1 and printing, via Lightroom Classic, to a Canon PRO-1000.  The problem persists in my setup.  Fortunatley,(after many frustrating hours and wasted paper and ink) the work around that alanl8 carefully spells out, above, works, for me.

[alanl8]

Good to know.  Disappointing of course that this is still an issue but, in some ways, better that the behaviour in Sequoia is consistent with Ventura and Sonoma, rather than introducing further failure cases.

[jrp2012]

This remains an issue on the latest Sequoia + LR Classic.

Has Adobe just given up on fixing the issue?

[MarkDS]

Interesting - I had also been informed by another Sequoia user that for now Canon Professional Print and Kayout remains the way to avoid this problem for now. I have two computers - one on Monterey, on which there are no issues, and the other on Ventura which requires using Epson Print Layout to avoiud the issue. My initial understanding that this problem affects both Epson and Canon printers remains unchanged, that it is not an Adobe issue, but something Apple needs to fix, (inferring the issue arises between the point at which the data leaves Adobe software and enters the computer OS CMS environment from which it goes to the printer driver). I would like to get my hands on more specific information about which stage of the print pipeline handles exactly which operations to better understand where the responsibility lies to fix this, but it remains a real nuisance. 

[Bob Somrak]

Printing to my Canon Pixma Pro 100 with Sequoia 15.3.1 works fine for both Printer Manages Color and Application Manages Color in LrC 14.2.  I was running Monterey as my computer did not support anything newer but now can run the latest.  Upon switching to the new M4 computer I had to recreate all my printer setups but it is working fine.  Not sure if or when Apple will break this again.  Apple has lots of practice doing that.  

[jrp2012]

Printing clearly works for some, but not others, irrespective of printer brand.  What we have not discovered is what the difference between the lucky and the unlucky is.    A previous installation of the Airport driver?  An SPI / API change?  It does not help that there is more than one issue: presets that don't stick and (so) an inabilty to set app v printer colour management reliably.  

[alanl8]

The challenge here is there are multiple issues (do to with presets, colour matching, etc) that I listed four of earlier in this thread.  On top of that, the behaviour for Canon users and Epson users can differ when following exactly the same process (I have first-hand experience of seeing that).  To date I've been unable to pin down which external factors affect the state of the print system - even printing from another application, between print jobs in LR can affect this.  As @MarkDS said above, using Canon Professional Print Layout or Epson Print Layout (in my case) does ensure a reliable print workflow.  It's not ideal and shouldn't be necessary but I've got used to exporting from LR to EPL now, using Epson's LR plug-in, rather than using the Print module and it's saved a lot of wasted ink and paper.

Sadly, I've pretty much given up hope of Adobe/Apple ever fixing this.  As there are multiple issues; some which are definitely Apple's to fix and others which might lie somewhere between Adobe and Apple; I can see it being a challenge to pin down the causes based on multiple user reports, which could be due to a combination of the different issues.  There will also be a many users that don't even notice this problem exists (it depends on how critical you are of printed colours being as close to your intended output as possible!) so it won't be top of either Apple or Adobe's agenda to fix.  That's not an excuse for it to be ignored though, as it's been evident for three MacOS releases now!  It's just disappointing that something we all used to rely upon for years (until Ventura) is no longer something we can put trust in, making the Print module largely redundant in a calibrated workflow.

[widphoto]

I have spent weeks attempting to fix this Lightroom Classic printing preset bug. I could not fix it but was able to find a workaround that solved my issue. The issue is either Adobe or Apple, does not appear to be Epson. I cannot save presets reliably in LRC. So I create the desired preset in Apple Preview app, then use that preset and its settings in Lightroom Classic. This has worked for me, for how long I do not know. Fingers crossed.

System: Mac Mini M4, Sequoia 15.3.1, LRC 14.2

[alanl8]

Good to hear you've got a workaround for the preset creation issue (I thinki that's effectively the method I suggested in my "Issue 1" notes earlier, using another application, like TextEdit or in your case Preview, to create the preset).  However, in my experience, although the presets can be created this way, it was still a bit of a lottery whether the correct ICC profile would be used from the preset, when you select it and click Print (as a result of the other issues).  I'd be interested to know if you get 100% success, just by choosing your preset (without first selecting the Default Settings and saving, as per my "Issue 3" notes), as that's really the most significant issue here... the somewhat random selection of the wrong ICC profile when printing from LrC, resulting in the colours being incorrect.  The rest of the issues can be largely worked around.