Having issues getting Mac OS Sequoia print driver to work with Epson, advice?

[StuartR]

Hello all. I tend not to upgrade unless I absolutely have to, and unfortunately I recently had to. I had been running Monterey for a few years without major disruptions, but upon upgrading to Sequoia I have been having trouble. Right now I am using my M1 Max Macbook Pro 16" and a P5000 printer on the latest driver (for 14.x). The biggest issue for me is that the option between color sync and epson print controls is not sticky and is greyed out, often with the wrong setting. As an example, I am printing from Lightroom or Photoshop and I go to set the color management in Lightroom or Photoshop as managed by them and choosing a profile, but then when I open up the print driver window, "color matching" will be greyed out, but instead of it being greyed out with "color sync" being selected, it will be epson color controls selected. Additionally, it does not seem to be sticky. Sometimes it looks like it is ok, but if I go in and change the printing resolution or just open the window to verify, when I check the color menu again it will have changed.

I have not had the chance to try the 9500 yet, but will try tonight or tomorrow. In general though, I am curious about things that override the Apple print driver (if there are any?). I tried Mirage a while back but the inability to control tone in ABW mode meant it was a non-starter for me (a lot of my prints were made with ABW and when I tried Mirage it could not replicate what I wanted to do (for example, using ABW on Thin Washi paper by selecting VFA as the printer but then editing the paper settings to suit the thinner paper). I have been printing as a Hahnemuhle Certified Studio for about fifteen years, so I am not a neophyte here, but it seems like each successive generation of software and printers has been more and more broken. I guess I can try Mirage again. I am thinking about Image Print but it is a big investment for the P9500 and P5000. I may do that, but my studio is more or less part time at the moment so it is not an insubstantial fee. Does anyone have any other thoughts? I am fifteen years in to doing this professionally for clients but as a one-man operation, and frankly I am just tired of it -- each new update, each new generation seems to offer some improvements, but then a whole host of errors, bugs and backsteps in ergonomics.

[digitaldog]

This is a known Apple bug (not sticky) that seems to have been fixed, at least in Sequoia. If you stick with this older OS, you must check each time; sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. If you get the CS button in the right condition, the prints should be fine. 

http://digitaldog.net/files/API%20Print%20bug%20in%20macOS.pdf

[StuartR]

Thank you Andrew. I am using OS 15.0 Sequoia which was just released. I think there is one update, which I will run, but the bug occurred after I updated, not before. I was using Monterey and it was fine. I will follow the instructions in your PDF and see if they help though. Thank you!

[digitaldog]

Odd, I saw the bug dating back to Ventura, but it hasn't shown up for me in Sequoia. However, you must still examine the settings and ensure they are correctly set. This is an Apple API used in a few applications; when you select Application Manages Color, the API is supposed to set the correct radio button and gray it out. As outlined, this has been wonky for awhile.

[Simon J.A. Simpson]

This interesting, but not at all reassuring.

A similar, but worse, situation exists with the Canon driver and Sonoma.  I have only tested this with a PRO–1000 but I suspect a similar situation may exist with their wider format printers who I believe share the same printer driver.

I have two Macs, one with Monterey installed (and which works as it should) and one with Sonoma.  Other than the OS the software on the Macs is identical – the same versions of Photoshop, Lightroom, and printer driver.

With either Lightroom or Photoshop managing colour the Sonoma dialogue ‘Printer Options > Colour Matching’ choice of either ‘ColorSync’ or ‘Canon Color Matching’ is greyed-out and the ‘Canon Color Matching’ is selected by default.  Under the ‘Quality & Media’ option it is then possible to select the ‘Rendering Intent’ to either ‘Perceptual (Photo)’ or ‘No Color Correction’.

‘No Color Correction’ produces horrible looking prints reminiscent those produced with no colour management either by an application or the printer.

‘Perceptual (Photo)’ produces prints which, at first viewing, could be described as ‘reasonable’.

However, in order to diagnose more thoroughly what is happening I tried making a series of prints using the Mac with Monterey installed and comparing them with those produced by Sonoma.  I tried printing from Photoshop with different rendering intents (Relative, Absolute Colormetric, and Saturation) to see if the ‘Perceptual (Photo)’ selection was affecting the output.

I used a standard printing test file (I think I may have downloaded it from Andrew Rodney’s website a long time ago).

There are subtle but clear differences in colour rendering between the Monterey prints and those produced with ‘Perceptual (Photo)’ selected on Sonoma.  The Sonoma prints show less differences between the three rendering intents than those printed through Monterey.  The colour renderings are clearly different between the two operating systems and the blacks are tending to block-up on Sonoma.

This convinces me that on Sonoma the printer driver is intervening in the colour management even though it is supposed to be turned-off.  And there seems to be no means of turning it off either in Photoshop, Lightroom, or the driver.

I am waiting to have a conversation with Canon technical support to see if we can get to the bottom of this.

[dgberg]

Please let us know what you find. I am getting some less than stellar colors with my new P4600 and have not been able to flush it out.
Mac 15 Sequoia.

[Simon J.A. Simpson]

Will do, Dan.

I have a call booked for Tuesday.

[JCD]

Did you try Relative Colormetric ?


quote author=Simon J.A. Simpson link=topic=144044.msg1261840#msg1261840 date=1729875171]
Will do, Dan.

I have a call booked for Tuesday.
[/quote]

[Remko]

This convinces me that on Sonoma the printer driver is intervening in the colour management even though it is supposed to be turned-off.  And there seems to be no means of turning it off either in Photoshop, Lightroom, or the driver.

Simon,

What I like to suggest is to print from Canon's Professional Print and Layout (PPL) from both computers, as PPL bypasses the printer driver. And see what result you get.
There are issues with the latest series of Mac OS's for some time that result in -probably - what you see in the printer driver on your computer with the newer macOS. Hence my suggestion.

Cheers,
Remko

[Simon J.A. Simpson]

OK, folk.

I spent a good 45 minutes with the excellent Naimesh Patel from Canon UK trying to troubleshoot this issue.  It is still work in progress.

By resetting the Apple printer system and reinitiating the driver we were able to get the colour management pipeline to work correctly and turn colour management off in the driver and show 'ColorSync' as the selected but greyed-out option.

However, once a preset for a paper is saved (e.g. the driver settings for printing on lustre) then the dialogue would revert to its original behaviour and would appear not to be turning-off colour management in the driver.

It was possible to overcome this behaviour by not using a paper preset and always starting from the ‘Default’ setting, but then you need to remember what you set for each of the papers you use and had profiled.  Also you would need to quit the Print dialogue and start from scratch each time.  Not satisfactory.

I hope to speak with Naimesh again soon, once he has time to consider the latest testing results.

More later…

[Simon J.A. Simpson]

Yes, Remko.  I have tried using Canon's Professional Print & Layout software.

This gets round the issues with the Apple dialogue by eliminating it altogether.  The prints I have made appear consistent between Monetary and Sonoma. 

However, I do not find it as easy to use as Photoshop or Lightroom.  There is not an automatic ‘fit to paper size’ option (that I have yet found) and the layout options are less than Lightroom's.  I need more time to play with, and get used to, it I guess.

[Simon J.A. Simpson]

One thing I have learned that I will pass-on to all here.

With Apple and the Mac OS, if you update your printer driver or the Mac OS including so-called ‘security updates’, it is necessary to delete the printer in the 'Printers & Scanners' section of the System Preferences/Settings and make a new one.

When you add a printer a dialogue box will come-up.  Select your Bonjour printer from the list and then click on the drop-down list next ‘Use:’.  Click on ‘Select Software’ and select your printer from the list.

This ensures that the OS will use the driver from your printer manufacturer and not Apple's AirPrint software.  You can then connect over WiFi, USB, or Ethernet depending on your printer.

If you do not delete and reselect your printer this can give rise to colour management issues.  I have had it confirmed by Canon that when you install a new driver the system can ‘lose contact’ with the profiles somehow and prints as if it is not colour managing.

[Simon J.A. Simpson]

OK, folk.

I spent a good 45 minutes with the excellent Naimesh Patel from Canon UK trying to troubleshoot this issue.  It is still work in progress.

By resetting the Apple printer system and reinitiating the driver we were able to get the colour management pipeline to work correctly and turn colour management off in the driver and show 'ColorSync' as the selected but greyed-out option.

However, once a preset for a paper is saved (e.g. the driver settings for printing on lustre) then the dialogue would revert to its original behaviour and would appear not to be turning-off colour management in the driver.

It was possible to overcome this behaviour by not using a paper preset and always starting from the ‘Default’ setting, but then you need to remember what you set for each of the papers you use and had profiled.  Also you would need to quit the Print dialogue and start from scratch each time.  Not satisfactory.

I hope to speak with Naimesh again soon, once he has time to consider the latest testing results.

More later…

I have just heard back from Canon and, after extensive testing, they believe the issue to be with the Mac OS, a bug in the CUPS printing system.  It has been referred-up to more senior technicians to investigate further.  I hope to hear more in mid November.

[digitaldog]

I have just heard back from Canon and, after extensive testing, they believe the issue to be with the Mac OS, a bug in the CUPS printing system.  It has been referred-up to more senior technicians to investigate further.  I hope to hear more in mid November.

Some software products use a private (undocumented) SPI called kPMApplicationColorMatching, which you see in Photoshop, Lightroom, Adobe Color Print Utility, the ColorSync Utility, etc. When you set Application Manages Color, the area of the driver that controls Colorsync will alter the radio buttons so they are grayed out. X-Rite’s i1Profiler and a few other software products have also implemented this SPI. Canon should, of course, know about this.

There is a bug in some versions of macOS that prevents the ColorSync radio button from automatically being selected and grayed out. This affects this application and many others! Always check the Color Matching options in all print drivers to ensure that the ColorSync radio button is selected and grayed out when you want the application to manage color (not the printer).

[Simon J.A. Simpson]

Thank you for the information, Andrew.

Wouldn't it be nice if Apple pulled itself together and made colour management printing ‘just work’ (as they used to say about their products).

So, we could install updates to system software and the printer driver and colour managed printing would continue working as it should; and if there was a potential issue with printing after upgrading the system software we would be warned to re-install our printer in System Settings.

And when printing from an application which manages colour, or you hope turns it off in the driver, it actually does turn it off.

Is this too much to ask ?

[Simon J.A. Simpson]

I did actually write a letter to Mr Cook about the whole printing debacle, a real paper letter, and posted it airmail to Cupertino; but no one has had the courtesy to even to acknowledge receipt of it.

Living in the heady world of electronic communications they probably didn't know what it was and threw it away.  But I did give them an email address to respond to.

Or was it simple hubris and arrogance ? 

[Ari-FLM]

One thing I learned the hard way is to make sure you're not using AirPrint.
System Settings > Printers & Scanners, select your Canon printer and check that the "Kind" does not contain "AirPrint".
If it does, this will override any paper profiles.
The solution is to delete the AirPrint driver and do as described above in Simon's post re: downloading the right driver.

Use PPL and "Relative Colrmetric" and never use the printer profiles or Auto, always use the paper profiles.