Need to print without color management on Mac, can't with photoshop

Report · Jun 04, 2025

I need to be able to print color targets for making custom ICC profiles, so I need to be able to print without color management. Photoshop doesn't allow this. I've had to use the old Adobe Color Printer Utility, which hasn't received an update in a decade or so. With each Mac OS system update, it becomes less and less usable. It now takes several attempts to open/print files. Color Sync is *supposed* to be able to do this, but the option to print without color management is always greyed out, no matter the file type. Since making custom profiles is a pretty vital thing to be able to do for people using Adobe products to do professional printing, I figure Adobe has some other solution besides an old, deprecated piece of stoftware... right?

Report · Jun 06, 2025

@John_William9936 I don't know which AI system you used to compose that reply but it contains statements that are way off the mark.
Edit > Colour settings contains the defaults for colour management and as such does not contain a No Colour Management option. In addition changing the default options for new documents does not affect an open document at all.

Photoshop's print dialogue used to contain an option for no Colour management but it was removed years ago, and now you cannot use Photoshop to print a target without colour management.

Dave

Report · Jun 07, 2025

@davescm dead right. Sadly the system will not allow me to upvote your answer.

@John_William9936 "One potential solution is to set Photoshop's color settings to "No Color Management" before printing. This option can be found under Edit > Color Settings, and you can set it to "No Color Management".

that option has not existed in Photoshop for many years. I'm sure you mean well but using AI to generate an answer isn't helpful as is proven by the incorrect info in your post. If you don't know please don't chip in.

neilB

neil B

Report · Jun 17, 2025

What about setting Color Management Policies to "Off"? With this option, there is no profile used for documents (new documents have none, and opened file profiles are ignored.)

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/color-settings.html

Report · Jul 18, 2025

Setting color management policies in Photoshop to off does not disable color management, and does not get the ball into the endzone. Color management set to "off" only forces Photoshop to fall back on whatever profiles are defined as default. Not at all the same as no color management.

Report · Jun 08, 2025

Coming from a proofing RIP background, this is something which is taken for granted.

Report · Jun 16, 2025

I know that you mentioned the issue with the Apple ColorSync Utility, which is mentioned here with a fix:

https://imagescience.com.au/services/custom-printer-profiling/printing-colour-targets-on-mac-using-c...

Report · Jul 19, 2025

ACPU does not do any magic, it simply sends the file "as is", delegating all color management issues to the printer driver at the operating system level (like most "dumb" printing programs, which, by the way, can successfully replace ACPU). Here are literally two steps to repeat what this utility does:

1. Open the file without assigning a color profile to it (i.e. untagged mode, in which only the brightness values are important, but not their coordinates in a specific color space)

2. Select Printer Manages Color in the Color Handling section and send the file to print.

You may be concerned about the printer profile specified in the inactive field when selecting Printer Manages Color, but from my observations, Photoshop simply indicates "the printer driver will use this profile when printing. Probably. I'm not exactly sure, but let it be so", in fact, Photoshop does not know which profile the printer will use (i.e. everything depends on its further settings) - to be 100% sure, you can go to the printer settings and disable all automatic corrections, all color management (here it strongly depends on the specific manufacturer, but as a rule, everyone has this option).

I prefer to print via ACPU, but when this is not possible, do it according to the algorithm above. I have checked many times - there is no difference in the shades of color patches, it is literally the same.

Report · Jul 22, 2025

@jazz-y "I prefer to print via ACPU, but when this is not possible, do it according to the algorithm above. I have checked many times - there is no difference in the shades of color patches, it is literally the same."

Anyone attempting to do this would need to be very careful to disable printer colourmanagment, because, if not, the printer software will select its ICC media profile based on the media selected there in "printer settings".

Are you doing this on Mac or Windows? It's macOS that’s messed up the relationship between Photoshop and the print settings in the printers driver software.

you wrote:

"there is no difference in the shades of color patches, it is literally the same."

Have you made spectrophotometer measurements of the colour patches to check that Photoshop with 'Printer manages color' (and printer colourmanagement disabled) exactly matches a file printed from the ACPU?

I'll be super surprised if what you wrote is correct, because the only reason Adobe released the ACPU was that it was needed to print device characterisation patches without ICC profiles being used, once the vital "no color management" option had been removed from Photoshop.

I hope this helps

neil barstow colourmanagement - adobe forum volunteer,

colourmanagement consultant & co-author of 'getting colour right'

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Report · Jul 22, 2025

I did not focus on the points that are part of the standard preparation for printing test scales and are described in the ACPU ReadMe:

Select your target printer from the Printer popup menu. The two important settings you need to find here are Paper Type and Color Management (the actual names will depend on your printer driver). These will be in popup menu that is initially set to Layout. Set Paper Type to the paper that most closely resembles the paper you're trying to profile. Set Color Management to Off. Some printer drivers will turn off Color Management automatically. When you have completed the above, click Print.

I'm talking about Windows, but I don't think ACPU works any differently on a mac - it's a lightweight program whose only function is to open a file ignoring all color profile tags in the file and send it in this form to the printer driver via the standard operating system API. ACPU simply doesn't have the ability to communicate with the printer in any other way (like, for example, some RIPs for consumer-class printers that come with a database of compatible drivers that allow you to directly control the ink supply to the printer nozzles).

Yes, I printed the scales via Photoshop using the algorithm specified above, then via ACPU and compared the plates using i1pro3. If you have the opportunity, you can try to repeat this on a Mac, I will be very happy if this trick works there too.

Report · Dec 06, 2025

You’re not alone — many Mac users face this issue because Photoshop no longer supports true “no-color-management” printing, and the outdated Adobe Color Printer Utility remains the only official tool for printing profiling targets, though it’s unstable on newer macOS versions. Adobe hasn’t released a modern replacement, so most professionals rely on third-party RIPs or profiling tools like X-Rite/i1Profiler or BasICColor, which allow printing without color management and work reliably across macOS updates. Until Adobe provides an updated solution, using a dedicated profiling app or RIP is the most stable approach.

Report · Dec 06, 2025

@Ethann_Collins7978 A couple of hours ago, I described the process for printing colour management targets from macOS Sequoia using the Apple Colorsync Utility's "Print as Color Target" option - it’s a bit of a convoluted process, but according to colour guru Andrew Rodney the Digital Dog, it works.

My post about that is on page 1 of this thread

You're right that targets can be printed from some profiling apps, e.g. i1Profiler, I'm not sure basICColor print provided a workflow to print direct from the app. in any case, though it's an EOL product now and hasn't been developed for a while, nor is it available to buy any longer since Karl Koch, company owner, retired.