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howardn37065722
Participant
July 15, 2019
Question

In my Graphic Arts class, I want to disable the Print option in Adobe Photoshop

  • July 15, 2019
  • 9 replies
  • 828 views

Hi,

I teach a Graphic Arts class in Ohio. I am asking for instructions to DISABLE the Print option in Adobe Photoshop CC.  I have been trying to get my students to use In-Design for printing . . . but they are a sneaky bunch.

We have a Window OS environment and our CC software is the newest version.  I do have access as an admin!

Thank You

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    9 replies

    Semaphoric
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    July 18, 2019

    When I went back to school about twenty years ago, students would just hit Print without checking what printer they were sending the job to. The people in the college business office were quite bothered when Graphic Design projects randomly emerged from their printers, while the students complained, "My project didn't print".

    Legend
    July 17, 2019

    Could you require that all projects turned in have Page Information printed on them? This would make it clear what program the work was printed from. Of course, this won't stop them from doing the entire design in Photoshop, and then dropping it whole into InDesign for printing.

    Could you have them turn it the computer files along with the print, so you could examine how they were created?

    Norman Sanders
    Legend
    July 17, 2019

    I am beginning to wonder whether some of you have forgotten what it was like to be the age of these students.. Set up a roadblock and the smartest among them will consider it a challenge, just as you probably did at their age , and they will work like blazes to get around it, often spending more time on that, then working on the assigned project. Once cracked, the solution will spread like wild-fiire among others in the class. Bet on it.

    I suggest you consider my earlier post.(#7)

    There is more to be taught in Photoshop class than the software.

    Legend
    July 17, 2019

    If the network is properly managed with Active Directory and managed print servers, this is trivial for an IT administrator to implement and impossible to get around. FWIW.

    Passwords on the printers would prevent direct connections.

    Ussnorway7605025
    Legend
    July 17, 2019

    and there are a dozen other ways to work around pointless blocks

    Conrad_C
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    July 17, 2019

    One approach to this is to simply hide the print commands in Photoshop. Adobe even provides tools for this.

    Choose Edit > Menus and deselect Visibility for the Print and Print One Copy commands.

    As you can see at the top, menu configuration is part of the Photoshop Defaults file, which means the preferences file. Because hiding commands is a Photoshop feature, there are undoubtedly some students who will read the Photoshop help files and realize why the Print commands are missing. To try and hold them off as much as possible, you could try the following:

    • Prevent student access to the folder containing the Photoshop preferences file.
    • Lock the Photoshop preferences file so they can't reset it.

    I'm not sure how effective this would really be. Also, the dialog box above does not let you hide the Menus command itself, for obvious reasons. So any students figuring this out could try to simply enable visibility for the Print command. Although that may or may not work if the preferences file is locked.

    Of course, locking the preferences might conflict with lessons that require altering preferences. It's all a tradeoff, however you do it.

    Also, as long as those commands are hidden, students can't learn how to print in Photoshop, and Photoshop printing is a deep subject and its own important skill. But maybe you have a course where that's all they do. I don't have any problem with the notion of printing images through the excellent InDesign print engine, because it's also an important skill to know how to print Photoshop images through InDesign while preserving consistent color.

    July 17, 2019

    https://forums.adobe.com/people/Conrad+C  wrote

    Also, as long as those commands are hidden, students can't learn how to print in Photoshop

    Even with them commands hidden they can still hit Ctrl + P to bring up the print dialog options

    Conrad_C
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    July 17, 2019

    Of course, the keyboard shortcuts are also configurable, so if someone was to go down this road they should also remove the Print keyboard shortcut.

    Legend
    July 15, 2019

    Talk to your IS people. This is handled by Group Policy in an Active Directory environment, or with third-party management software.

    Ussnorway7605025
    Legend
    July 15, 2019

    Agreed your students are going to get around any blocked printer because Windows doesn't like blocking off assets... It wants to use them even if you say not to

    p.s I also agree with them that InDesign isn't the best tool for the job but I understand that the powers will not listen to voices calling for change

    JJMack
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    July 15, 2019

    I imagine many of your students use their own PC and Mac.  if I  was one I of your students I would not allow you to modify my machine software.  That's a windmill you will not be able to defeat Don. Students are intelligent not a sneaky bunch of meatballs. Many know way more about software than you do....

    JJMack
    howardn37065722
    Participant
    July 17, 2019

    Many of the students do have their own computers, but they use the school equipment during school hours.  I wouldn't dream of using or altering their personal property.  "Sneaky" was used in this forum as a term of endearment.  My students are certainly intelligent and many of them are better than me at many things.   I had hoped to find guidance to accomplish this task.  After reading replies here I think my best option IS to contact our IT department and request again.  

    My thanks to everyone who replied; even JJ Mack who interpreted a very benign message as insulting. 

    Norman Sanders
    Legend
    July 17, 2019

    Howard,  As you can see from my bio, I am an old Prof. I would like to share a simple solution.

    Tell your students you want them to use InDesign for print, and why.

    Tell them if they cheated, you probably would not know, but they certainly would. Ask them not to let you down, not to let themselves down. Tell therm you trust each one of them to follow your instructions... and mean it.Then get on with your teaching. Good luck.

      --Norman

    Norman Sanders
    Legend
    July 15, 2019

    Are these computers connected to a server?

    Must the printer be available for other Photoshop classes using these computers?

    howardn37065722
    Participant
    July 15, 2019

    The computers are networked, and students have access to storage on a specific server.  The computers are used by Seniors during one part of the day and then used by the Juniors.  I am not completely sure if the actual CC application software is on the desktop HD or accessed through the server.

    No one other than my class uses the computers . . . but I didn't really think about how it would effect other students in other programs.  I have already asked our Tech Dept. and I was told they do not think it is possible.  I actually have seen it other places, that is why I am asking here.

    My students do put in a unique user name and password . . .