Has MacOS Sonoma fixed Ventura's problem not saving print settings?

[rbanks88]

In Ventura, there's been an ongoing problem with print settings not being reliably saved. (See https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/updated-macos-ventura-13-2-1-print-se...

Has anyone tried this with the Sonoma beta? (Keeping my hopes up...)

Thanks,
Russell

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

Hi Russell - unfortunately no, Apple did not fix this issue.

[NB, colourmanagement net]

@Kevin Stohlmeyer I'm remembering Andrew Digitaldog (I think) saying you just have to click around.

How frustrating.

Andrew wrote" This is an OS (not Adobe) issue, many settings (in the print driver dialog) for some reason, are not sticky with Ventura. I've seen this too. Even making presets in my Epson driver doesn't always work. 

Color Settings should be grayed out when using Application (Photoshop) Manages Color. Been this way for years. That too isn't always sticky which will ruin a print if not using this mode. Again, this is Apple's doing. Ventura with printing (and System Preferences) is a GUI mess. "

I've not tried Ventura myself, but I think this is generally about the issue of the "colorsync" button not being grayed out. I do recall a specific thread but can't find it. Does it not save media options / resolution etc - even if you make a "saved setting" in, say an Epson driver? 

I wonder if there's a good trusted workaround?

If it's in Sonoma too that's pretty poor. I could have called John Zimmerer at Apple when he ran Colorsync but it seems perhaps no one does that job since he left.  I'll try chat with colour guy Son Do from Rod's n Cones whom I believe now works at Apple - to get any action, I guess we need a succinct description of the problem. 

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

[rbanks88]

Thanks for checking, Kevin. I wonder how professinal print labs are handling this? Using Windows? 

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

Most pro RIP systems are natively on Windows PCs and they are not printing using the OS interfaces. They would have something like Fiery or another management queue for their printing.

[Nick Bright · Accepted solution]

One workaround that we have found to be working is to create the print settings(presets) using the Preview app. Simply open any file with Preview,  go to the Print menu, select the target printer, select your desired settings, incliding the printer settings and save it as a "Print Job Preset" for that printer.
Then - selecting those presets from Photoshop seems to work consistenly. The only thing to NOT do is to not try to midify the presets through Photoshop as it will ruin them - only use the Preview app.

[rbanks88]

Giving it a try today. So far, it looks good. Thanks!

[rholden35]

I just updated my operating system to Sonoma, and had this same problem. Anytime I printed in photoshop, and I pulled up a newly created preset, it was defaulted to plain paper and standard print....nothing for that preset was saved. I installed and reinstalled my printer, installed new drivers, deleted all print presets and created new ones...nothing was working. Luckily, before I wasted too much ink and paper, I found this thread. I actually printed from the Preview app, and the prints looked amazing and how they should. I then deleted all my presets, and created a new one in the Preview app as you suggest, and then tried printing in Photoshop using the Preview app preset...bingo. Works perfectly. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

P.S. I'm on a Canon 8720 in case any one else is having Photoshop printer setting issues, this is a great work around and fix

[Randy5C33]

Thanks for this tip!  I too have been encountering this issue, and this workaround does seem to do the trick.  It's obviously not ideal, having to switch to Preview to create the preset that you want to use with Photoshop, but it's better than having to set everything every time!  This does make me think that even though Adobe wants to blame Apple for this, I think it must be a little bit Adobe's fault.  Otherwise, why would it work on Apple Preview and not within Adobe's products?  It strikes me that Adobe may not be cognizent of changes to the Apple library in how this process works now (and if Apple has not clearly conveyed those changes, then yes, I'll point the finger back at them).  Either way, how is it possible that between a software manufacturer and an OS manufacturer, they can't talk and get this crap sorted for their mutual customers - shame on both of them. <whew> - rant over.  Thanks again for that tip!

[gener7]

The File > Print wizard in Photoshop is not the same as the MacOS Print wizard, and for that reason can hit print driver and other bugs the MacOS wizard does not. (If I recall how Chris Cox explained it in the forums.)

Why they haven't managed to fix it is in NDA land at the moment, so at least I'm happy for the workaround.

[NB, colourmanagement net]

@Nick Bright Nice idea, thanks for sharing. That's been a pain for a lot of users.

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

[DanielSroka]

I tried this, and it helped, but I have found it to be not fully trustworthy. After selecting a (Preview-made) preset in Photoshop, I have found that if you even open one of its sections to confirm the settings, it will revert it to its default. So there is no way to confirm that the settings going to the printer are correct.

[Vas.S]

Thank you!

at least I understood what's happening!

it's definitely adobe problem. 
Capture One doesn't jump with settings like LR or PH. 

[Indyboosler]

Interesting as in the last two months presets in Ventura have started working nomrally. Unfortunately as what usually happens when a new OS comes out, the old one gets REALLY buggy.  I'm sick of dealing with all the new bugs in Ventura but I'm afraid to upgrade to Sonoma.

[mdemar22]

Hey there,

Curious what version of Ventura you're on if you're mentioning the last two months presets working? Did you upgrade or did it just seem to randomly work with what ou were using before?

[Indyboosler]

Whatever the latest version is. I'm pretty good about running the upates. I just ran an update the other day and it's still working. I'm really afraid to upgrade the OS but I'm getting all 'it's time to change the OS bugginess' that happens when the new OS comes out. 

[manuelfhp]

I had the same problem.
I've removed and installed an older adobe reader version before the last update...now is respecting and saving properly printer setting.

[NB, colourmanagement net]

@manuelfhp That’s interesting, I had thought it was a MacOS issue. With the only workaround being to make and save printer settings in the Apple Preview app

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
Help others by clicking "Correct Answer" if the question is answered.
Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here. "Upvote" is for useful posts.

[rbanks88]

I don't have Adobe Reader on my Mac, but I still have the problem with saving printer settings. Doesn't that imply it's not just an Adobe Reader problem?

[tracyvalleau]

For at least two years, user-created printer presets fail to load back the same settings they supposedly saved. Thousand of people affected. Presets by Preview, Photoshop, PrintTool and more affected. I discovered why a couple of days ago:

user custom presets are added to a given printer.plist (such as "com.apple.print.custompresets.forprinter.SC_P6000.plist" in ~/Library/Preferencs.

The each show up as a dictionary using the user-supplied name. In that individual setting is another dictionary named "com.apple.print.preset.settings" which ***should*** have about 90 key/string values, which are apparently printer settings.

In the failing presets by Presets by Preview, Photoshop, PrintTool, however that "com.apple.print.preset.settings" dictionary has ***less than 10*** key/strings.

Obviously, the loss of 80% of the needed data is causing the problem.

However, DxO Photolab creates new user presets which have the full compliment of 90-ish entries in the dictionary, and presets created in Photolab load perfectly in Preview, Photoshop, PrintTool and work fine.

________________________________________________________________________

I cannot fix this since I don't have access to the source code, but I'd sure like to know how, so I can share it with Adobe, Apple, et all, and get this problem fixed for users.

My coding years are behind me (all 45 of them) but I'm still an Apple Developer, so I went in and glanced through the docs trying to figure out what DxO is doing that Apple/Adobe are not.

Now I'm speculating here, but it appears to me that the process of programmatically creating a user preset *begins by querying the system and getting a record of all the current printer settings* ie:

NSPrintInfo : NSObject and
var deviceDescription: [NSDeviceDescriptionKey : Any] , a dictionary of keys and values that describe the device.

I'm guessing that from there, the fields in the deviceDescription are altered by adding / altering the field with the user's input, placed into the "com.apple.print.preset.settings" and then the whole thing is saved back out as a preset in the printer plist.

Or something similar to that process. (Again, I'm speculating).

If that's close, then why are some devs getting the full list, while most of them are getting 1/10 of it? Is the query for info (whatever call that is) configurable? Meaning can you ask for ALL the data, or some subset of it? (I'd think if it was an Apple/Xcode issue, the it would affect ALL publishers, and DxO would be affected by it too... so that's not it.)

It is possible that no such call is made at all, and the failing presets (with only 10-ish entries) are only saving the changes (when apparently that does provide sufficient information when it's read back in?)

Bottom line: why is DxO getting all the data it needs and Preview/Photoshop are not?

(I have a screenshot of this here: [https://valleau.art/blog/printer-presets-no-longer-working-right/])

anyone care to help?

[manuelfhp]

Hello,

For me is crystal clear that is Adobe’s fault.

I downgrade my Adobe reader and it works perfectly.

Now the print setting is saved with success.

I’m using MacOS Sonoma 14.0

This is the steps to perform a clean remove and reinstall

1) Download , install and run this tool from Adobe to remove Adobe reader:

https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/Labs/AcroCleanerMac.dmg 

2) Also is better to remove old preferences to avoid cache 

From command line in you terminal app (Applications > Utilities > Terminal)  execute:

# cd ~/Library/Preferences

# rm -fr com.adobe.*

3) Download the old version 

https://get.adobe.com/br/reader/otherversions/

Mac OS 10.14

Reader 2022.001.20112 for Mac

That's it ....now the printer save setting problem is gone...

BUT....the problem is time to time adobe updates by itself and the problem comes again.

I’m looking how to avoid this auto update since there is no option to disable automatic updates until Adobe wake up and fix this problem....

Regards

Manuel Pardo

[thomasp52746878]

A a photographer, I rely on printing for my living. Why is this still an issue almost 2 years later. I've actually had my complaints about it deleted by certain moderators. Lightroom, Photoshop, anything adobe seems to have a problem saving presets for printers so you can't make them print correctly without having a preset becasuse as always, if its not a preset, when you go to print, it completely resets to default configuration. You can find people screaming all over the internet and offering up wild hairbrained fixes to the problem that work for some and not for others. Why isn't this getting solved. Is Apple and Adobe trying to push people to use PCs?

[tracyvalleau]

Yes... or sorta "yes" - I found the problem a few months ago.

Here's the full explanation: https://valleau.art/blog/printer-presets-no-longer-working-right/

(Screenshots as proof at the end of the blog.)

It appears the problem is not Adobe's, but an Apple issue.

At the time, I sent this to Adobe, Print-Tool, Apple.

What I ran into was total apathy: no one cares enough to even look at it, although Roy Harrington said he would when he gets time.

Tick... tick... tick.

Maybe Sequoia will fix it, but I'm not holding my breath.

Good luck to us all!

Tracy Valleau

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

@tracyvalleau doubtful as this has been an issue through several OS iterations. Long story short Apple does not allow third party apps to control the printer settings in Apple dialog boxes. Someone found a way by building presets in Preview at one point or another, not sure if that is still viable.

[tracyvalleau]

Hello, and thanks for that. I'm a retired Apple Programmer, having started with them in 1978, so I'm pretty comfortable with Apple and programming. The problem began when Apple did a massive revision of the printing system, and split presents into "Types" - Custom Preset and Print Job Preset. Theoretically, the Print Job Preset is the main (aka, the old way) one, and the Custom Preset is a variation, based on the Print Job Preset, but with a small difference, such as paper size.

So this means that the Custom Preset contains only the snippets of code that are different from the Print Job. Custom Presets do not have the full complement of data needed, and rely on have a correctly filled in and functioning Print Job Preset.

The problem is, thatthe system does not handle this correctly, and allows the Print Job Preset to be altered to contain only subset of information from the Custom Preset. This wipes out about 80 necessary setting from the Print Job.

This is clearly evident in the screenshots on my referenced blog page.

I spoke directly to the actual programmers at DxO (not support staff) and asked if they are doing anything different, since all their presets are complete. They said they are just using the Apple API and not doing anything special. Then I looked into the Xcode developer docs on printing, and you are correct that there is no provision for third-party control.

Upshot: it's not a third-party issue.

I used the Preview trick at one point, but as of Sonoma 14.5 it is no longer working. 

However, since carefully roto-rootering the existing presets and starting completely from scratch for a given printer does work using DxO Photolab, it appears that the problem is as I described.

It -may- be the case that if one deletes the existing printer presets as described in my post, and starts over using ONLY Print Job Presets, some success may follow. 

I've now devoted a full work week to looking into this thing, and offered what I found. There is nothing more I can do.

Please take a look at https://valleau.art/blog/printer-presets-no-longer-working-right/ for the gory details.