Mac OS Photo Printing Problem
Recently I found myself in a complete panic when I suffered a serious photo printing problem on my Mac. Fortunately, I was able to resolve it, but I wasted a lot of time and money in the process. Then scarily, one of my friends experienced the same issue. Here’s one of the prints to help you understand the problem.
In this article, I’m going to explain the problem and what I did to fix it by resetting the Mac printing system.
My Past Printing Problems
Most of my photo printing problems in the past have been when using Adobe Lightroom on a Windows PC. I usually print from Lightroom as it makes Soft Proofing very easy and the resulting prints are a good match for my monitor. But Lightroom hasn’t been without its problems. I’ve experienced prints that seem to lose contrast and colour, ending up looking “muddy”, very much like the example above. You can even read about this on my blog some time back (https://thelightweightphotographer.com/2016/03/02/printing-weirdness/).
If you’re wondering why I’m telling you this, it’s because it’s happened to me a few times now. Each time, nothing I try fixes the problem, but then suddenly it vanishes, and my prints are fine again. Then about two years ago the problem resurfaced on my Windows PC, and it’s remained ever since. I make a test print every couple of months but there’s always a problem. After this, I gave up printing on my PC and have made all my prints using a Mac. That’s why it was such a scare when the Mac developed the same issue.
Why Printing Problems are Hard to Trace
Although I don’t believe I’m the only person with this problem, it’s very hard to track down in the ocean of information that is the internet. Most peoples printing problems come down to not understanding how soft proofing works, or how to configure a printer. When you search for answers in articles or on forums, most assume you’re making a mistake with in one of these two areas. I even had one person refer me to my own book (not knowing it was me) to learn how to soft proof correctly.
The Problem with my Mac
The latest problem when printing from my Mac came to light when I needed to make an A3 print. I had been printing a couple of days earlier and all the prints were fine. This time I turned my printer on and printed an image from Lightroom. The image had previously printed correctly, but now it looked dull, muddy and with terrible colour. I immediately recognised it as the same problem that I had on my Windows PC.
I decided immediately that it was Lightroom again and switched to Photoshop, but the result was no better. I then decided to try Affinity Photo but that was the same. In fact, nothing I tried would make an accurate print. I checked and then rechecked every setting, but nothing worked. I even tried telling the printer to “manage the colours” rather than using a printer profile but still didn’t improve things.
Eventually, I sent the image file to my Windows PC and made a print using Qimage. The print looked great so now I knew the problem was my Mac and not the image. Working through my memory, I realised that I had upgraded my Mac OS to Mojave (the latest operating system at this time) since I had made my last successful print and it might be the problem.
How I Fixed my Mac Photo Printing Problem
My initial searches came up with suggestions about print driver compatibility issues. This is very possible with every new OS release, so I installed the latest printer driver for my Epson printer. Unfortunately, this didn’t fix the issue.
I then came across an article explaining how to fix printer issues on a Mac. This explained that it’s possible to experience problems with the print system and that you can reset this. Resetting the print system on a Mac essentially deletes all the print drivers, forcing you to reinstall them. It’s therefore something of a last resort, especially if you have a few print drivers installed. It did though fix my problem, and everything now works. This is how to do it:
- Open the Mac System Preferences.
- Select Printers & Scanners.
- On the left side of the dialog, you should see a list of the installed printers.
- Right click on this list and in the pop-up menu select “Reset Printing System…”
- You asked to confirm that you want to reset the system. Select the Reset button.
This resets your printing system and you will need to reinstall your printer drive.
Summary
After I reset my Mac printing system everything started working properly and my prints were accurate.
My friend who also started to have printing problems also tried this and it fixed his issue. Best of all, I just tried printing from Lightroom on my Windows PC and that’s also started working.
I hope if you’re experiencing Mac photo printing problems my experience can help you.
Book Offer
Get your FREE copy of "6 Steps to Shooting Brilliant Landscape Photography" by subscribing for free to Lenscraft in Focus.
Follow the advice in this deceptively simple book to significantly improve your landscape photography. Organised into 6 simple lessons, this valuable and detailed guide provides information that’s often overlooked. In fact, lesson 3 is so obvious that most photographers ignore it completely.
If you want to improve your Landscape Photography fast, follow this book.
How to Get Your Book
- Enter your details using the form on the right. I will then send you an email to confirm you’ve entered your email correctly.
- Follow the instruction in my confirmation email.
- After that, I’ll send you a link to download your free book (PDF, ePub and Kindle formats. The email might also include discounts for my other courses and books so be sure to read it carefully.
My Promise to You: I will never share or SPAM your email.
Hi Robin
I have the same issue on my PC via Lightroom. As you say you can try everything and it does not go away. In desperation I removed everything item of software associated with my Epson Photo 1500 and re-installed it I ticked box to stop updates on installation. This is I believe the same as you have done on your Mac. Made test print everything fine, so I switched off happy. Next time I switched on problem back realised that on switch on Epson goes to check for updates. I can block updates but from past experience that can cause some issues.
So I started to look at exactly was happening. Took great care in going through soft proofing using a 10 point wedge with RGB and combination black. Set it up so original and proof copy were well matched, using the print colour read out under histogram then printed it out. Result as you described muddy colours with a strong green colour with worst in shadows on the black wedge, plus terrible strong magenta in the shadows on the magenta. Checked everything again on different papers (using Fotospeed with respective profiles). Still no good. I then looked at what I could vary on the printer when using ICM. Only one control makes a lot of difference that being brightness. The control is measured in % so I had no real idea what a changed was actually being applied. Tried printing with different percentages 10% to 60% in 10% steps and found that around 30-40% the problem virtually went away.
I then went back to proof copy and varied exposure to try and simulate what was happening and found that at about a 1/3 stop increase to the right I again was able to regain some control. Now everything is not 100% but at least I am not using paper and ink at a horrific rate.
So what is going on I really do not know, seems that a software update is causing the issue, but at least I have a work around. It could be that Epson and some item of Microsoft or Lightroom Has got out of sync and it causes the issue.
Anything further you can add as to how to over come the issue then please let me know. I suspect from what I have found, that when you re-installed the printer driver on your Mac you also in some way changed the printer so when you tried it on your PC it was ok. So it might be that the software on the printer is to blame.
Thanks for your comment Geoff. After all the investigation I have done, I think there are two issues here. First, there is a problem with the Mac O/S which causes issues for the printer and this can be easily fixed using the rest as described in the article. I then think there is a second problem in Lightroom which also causes muddy green/brown colours in prints. The reason I think it’s separate is that it only affects printing from Lightroom, all the other applications are fine. On the Mac, this wasn’t the case and it affected all applications until the printing system was reset.
I’ve experienced the Lightroom problem on my Windows PC four times now. On three occasions it just went wrong but on one occasion it happened when I switched the printer black ink between Matt and Gloss. I’m suspecting there’s a problem in my computer registry that could be causing this which would also explain why uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers doesn’t fix this. I have experienced registry problems with lots of software in the past (a long story) but when I upgraded my Nik Collection from Google to the latest DxO, a lot of these other problems appeared to get fixed. It may be worth running a registry scan with CCleaner (Free) or similar to see if it fixes the issue
Thanks. However, why didn’t you simply continue printing via Qimage?
I can’t remember properly but I recall having a problem with the Soft Proofing in Qimage. I also don’t find Qimage very intuitive for some functions. After that, I switched my main image editing over to my Mac desktop and would need to buy another license to use Qimage there.