UPDATED TO SHOW CHANGES IN SNOW LEOPARD ... SEE YELLOW TEXT.

Apple dramatically changed the mechanism used by the OS to communicate with the printer in Leopard  (OS X 10.5).  Most printer drivers and color managed applications had problems and required updates, but despite the updates residual issues still remain.  There is anecdotal evidence that Leopard, CS4, and Epson print drivers are still not playing together as well as they should. I certainly do not know who is to blame ... of course it’s always the “other guys fault”.  Generally speaking the changes bring some needed functionality to OS X and ColorSync so it seems the change by Apple is a good one overall, but since these issues are rare and seemingly random I’m not sure there is much effort to resolve the problems.

Sometimes the workaround to resolve printer problems involves setting the printer’s default ColorSync profile to one other than that set by the printer manufacturer.  It is important to note this is completely different than simply selecting the printer as the default printer for the OS.  How to accomplish this and how to verify whether or not the change has actually worked isn’t very well documented ... I spent some time with Google without much success.  Hopefully this article will help those trying to do this same thing.

First a little more discussion of the problem.

One of the key changes for Apple in Leopard was to empower ColorSync. As an example, for most of it’s life iPhoto has been a pretty poor performer when printing to higher quality inkjet printers. The OS didn’t provide the printer driver a simple mechanism to use a profile other than the manufacturer’s “default” profile, which worked just fine if you used the manufacturers recommended paper.  With Leopard if you choose ColorSync under the Color Matching tab in print dialog box, you see a popup menu which allows you to tell ColorSync what paper profile you would like it to use.  This then functions basically the same as letting Photoshop manage colors when printing, the main difference being the use of Apple’s CMM engine rather than Adobe’s ACE engine.

I don’t know all of the behind the scene changes (and wouldn’t understand them anyway), but one of the problems is older applications and printer drivers didn’t work correctly with this new system of OS color management.  Currently I see sporadic complaints on forums about their printers not producing expected results despite successful printing prior to some change.  The most common complaints sound much like  “double profiling” which means both the application (Photoshop) and the OS (ColorSync) are applying the printer profile.  The print driver should be able to tell the OS to disable ColorSync, and it certainly appears it does but somehow the communication isn’t working 100 % of the time and ColorSync is still applying some modifications ... perhaps even on rare occasions applying the full profile.

As I mentioned, most of the time things seem to work.  There is one very specific example which can be replicated easily, which to me indicates there is still a problem within the OS, application, and printer driver that may cause unexpected results at random times.  This problem was first brought to my attention on a thread on Luminous Landscape, and after quite a bit of testing it is a confirmed bug.

This problem occurs when attempting to print with no color management from Photoshop CS4 using OS X 10.5.6 and Epson’s most recent print drivers (I personally confirmed this with the 7900 and 3800).  For example when printing targets for making profiles you must disable both application and OS color management. If the target is printed using a different paper type than the paper type used for the current ColorSync default profile (which is set to Epson Premium Luster) the target will print inaccurately. This is especially true if the target requires a different black ink (MK/PK) than the ink used for the default profile paper type. I haven’t determined if it just the black ink type that matters or if other factors require matching the paper type. If color management is disabled completely, any settings in ColorSync should be irrelevant - this should never happen.  But targets printed using various combinations of Photoshop and operating systems (CS2, CS3, OS X 10.4 and Windows)  yield identical results .. the only ones that are different (and obviously not as good) are those printed from OS X 10.5 and CS4 where the printers default profile was built using a different paper type than the one being used in the Printer drivers dialog box.

As an example, I am currently profiling Breathing Colors Chromata White canvas for the 7900.  While I found their profile for the 11880 performed very well, their profile for the 7900 produced surprisingly different (and bad) results.  When I first printed the target, it looked a little “washed out”.  I remembered the bug, so I set my default color sync profile for the Epson 7900 to Watercolor Paper Radiant White MK (the paper type used when printing to this media), and printed the targets again.  The results were as expected, and different than the original targets.  Personally I fail to understand how any information in the default profile would even cause such a problem, not to mention why any information from the default profile is even accessed and used at all. Interestingly enough, CS3 seems to print targets under Leopard accurately.

This seems to be a bug only when trying to disable all color management ... as long as Photoshop is managing colors things seem to print normally (for most people that is).

OK ... enough already.  Here’s how to change the default profile ...

The printer manufacturer establishes a “factory default profile” which is used by ColorSync when printing.  Until now I guess Apple assumed most consumers used their printer manufacturers recommended paper, which resulted in somewhat satisfactory prints.

As I mentioned this has nothing to do with the default printer.  Changing this default profile isn’t particularly straight forward, and what’s worse, it isn’t obvious that the change has even worked.  Begin by opening the ColorSync Utility (Applications/Utilities/Colorsync Utility) and click on Devices.

You will have to resize the list by dragging the dot so you can read the entire profile name.  You will notice here that my 7900 is not the “default” printer, the HP laserjet in my office is.  If you scroll down the list of profiles for the printer you will eventually find one with a blue dot, and if you click that profile you will then see the next screen (you may have to resize the window so you can read all of the information about the profile).

Here we see the default profile for this printer is set to Epson Premium Luster, as noted by the blue dot. This is the first confusing part ... the “Factory Profile” information on the right side has nothing to do with the “Default Factory Profile”.  If you click on any profile in the list, it will then show up as the “factory Profile and the “current Profile”.  Sort of meaningless.

update:  Please note that if you are using Snow Leopard and the latest Epson Drivers, the default profile is no longer Premium Luster.  For example for the the Epson 7900 it is now sRGB Profile ... here is a screen shot

If you are using Snow Leopard and your screen does not match the one above, INCLUDING both the Factory Profile and the Current Profile you might try resetting the default profile by clicking the arrow next to Current Profile and selecting set to Factory.  If that doesn’t resolve your problems, then you might try setting the default profile to the profile you are going to print from following the rest of the steps outlined below).

Our goal here is to change the current default profile from the factory default to a different one, in this case to a profile that was made using the paper type we intend to use when building our new profile.  To do this make sure the profile with the blue dot is highlighted, click the arrow button next to Current Profile, and select Other...

which then opens this dialog box ...

In the case of Epson printers the profiles are buried pretty deep in Epson resources, and are not in the ColorSync folder inside the Library folder.  However, the OS seems to know where they are.  If you don’t see them, here is the complete path to navigate.  (If you still don’t see them you need to reinstall the printer driver).

In this case I’m going to set the default to Water Color Paper- Radiant White_MK ... the setting I’ll be using when printing the target and printing to this medium.

When done you now see this listed as the “Current Profile” ...

At this point, you are done and can quit ColorSync, but if you are like me, you want to confirm what you just did worked, and are puzzled why the blue dot indicating the default profile didn’t move.  So you click on the profile you just chose and are surprised to see it listed as the factory profile and current profile.  In fact, if you click on any other profile in the list, they all display as the Factory and Current profile.

HUH? 

Here’s the problem .. the blue dot does not indicate the current default profile.  The blue dot represents the manufacturers default profile. Basically it is the one that will be used if you reset the Printers Default Profile to the Manufacturers default profile.  The blue dot doesn’t ever move.  In addition, the Factory Profile and Current Profile listed aren’t really connected to the default profile.  What in effect this screen does is show you the factory profile for the highlighted choice, and show you the current profile.  You can literally take any profile in the list, and using the same steps tell ColorSync to use a different profile (the Current Profile) any time you choose the highlighted profile.  I’m not sure what functionality this offers, but for example, I could create my own profile for Epson Premium Luster, and use these steps set the Current profile for Epson Premium Luster to use my profile.  If using ColorSync and choosing Epson’s Premium Luster profile, ColorSync would instead use my Premium Luster profile.  Yeah, I know, way too confusing ... why would you ever want to do that?  I don’t know ... I personally can’t think of a reason.  The only real purpose for any of this functionality would be to change the factory default ... why can’t we just click a profile, and click a “Set as Default” button, and then the blue dot moves to show the new Colorsync default profile for that printer?  Seems logical, but it doesn’t work that way.

There are two ways to verify what profile is currently set as the default ColorSync profile for your printer.  One is to open Colorsync Utility and click the profile with the blue dot and then see what profile is listed as the Current Profile. This is what ColorSync will read as the default profile. I’m not sure this setting is very sticky ... it appears some conditions may cause it to reset.  Another way to verify the default profile is to select Print from the File menu while using an Apple application, such as Safari or Preview.  Select the printer, select the Color Matching tab, select ColorSync, and make sure Automatic is displayed.  The displayed profile is the current Colorsync default for that printer.

As mentioned, once I set this paper type as the default my targets printed accurately.  I verified this by reading targets printed from CS3/OS X 10.4 and comparing with the ones from 10.5.6/CS4 ... virtually identical results. It is obvious Apple has work to do - this entire process should be much more transparent and easier to manage - it shouldn’t even be necessary.  In my example, if I have told the OS, Photoshop CS4, and the printer driver to not color manage a document, any settings such as this shouldn’t affect  the output anyway.  The fact it does affect the output indicates there are still residual issues remaining, and hopefully someone at Apple, Adobe, and in my case Epson are listening.

There may be other occasions where changing this default profile is worth trying to see if it cures a problem you are experiencing.  When doing this I had to muddle through it ... I couldn’t find it documented very well anywhere.  Hopefully this will help.