Is driver support download for epson scanner safe

Over the past few years since the release of Apple's macOS 'Mojave' and later macOS 'Catalina' several colour problems were reported by our customers and on internet photographic fora. We explain a few of them here, along with possible fixes or work-arounds. There's also some advice on Mac 'housekeeping' and why not to rush in and upgrade to the latest version. This is written with photographers in mind, and you may find more in-depth information and solutions elsewhere.

Why You should delay upgrading to ANY NEW version of macOS, especially 'Catalina' and macOS 11 'Big Sur'.

macOS 11 ''Big Sur' has been released. It offers no compelling new features, but a lot of 'window dressing' with menus, etc. looking more like those from iPhones. Its main purpose is to be compatible with the Apple Silicon ('ARM' based) M1 chips.

We look at some of its implications, and why you should NEVER automatically upgrade, especially to the first release ('.0') of a new version.

For many years Apple has had a purely-marketing driven policy of annual operating system 'upgrades' which offer very few real advantages, apart from some security improvements and support for newer hardware. These new versions of macOS are introduced annually regardless of whether or not they have bugs! The users get to test them for Apple. 'Mojave' had a whole series of bugs which were only discovered by actual normal users AFTER they upgraded to it.

The initial release of 'Catalina' was known to be problematic with some applications, and not just those using bit addressing, but high-sophisticated professional apps such as Capture One Pro. These seem to be mostly fixed now. You are advised to check user forums for those apps before upgrading to 'Big Sur'!

You are therefore advised to wait a few months for version '.2' or '.3' at least before upgrading, and to switch off automatic updates!

Big Sur and Printing

To date there haven't been any reliable reports of printing with 'Big Sur'! Indeed, it appears that the printer manufacturers have very few, if any, drivers which officially support it. You shouldn't upgrade your OS until there's a genuine OEM driver (NOT Apple AirPrint!) available! It may work, but possibly won't. Indeed you shouldn't buy a printer without first checking from the manufacturer's Support site that they have a printer driver for your OS version! Some manufacturers, such as Canon, do not have macOS drivers available for certain 'consumer', and probably also older, printers. They only list the unreliable Apple AirPrint driver, which prevents accurate printing with Application Colour Management.

How to Check Your macOS Version

Catalina and bit Apps!

Or rather Catalina and NO bit Apps!

When using the last two major releases of macOS ( and ) while opening certain 'older' apps you may have noticed a warning to the effect that they will soon cease to run. This is because they are 'bit' and the new version () of macOS will only run 'bit' apps or utilities. This may be OK if you have a newish system and only use shiny new apps, but do you?

Many photographers, and others, still use Adobe Photoshop CS6 and even CS5, Lightroom and other 'old' apps, for the simple reason that they still work well and the newer versions offer very little extra benefit. They have also paid in full for them, and so resent having to rent ('subscribe' to) newer versions. Although these apps and many others may officially be bit they often rely on simple 'utilities' or 'helper' apps to work. Some of these may still be bit because their creators couldn't be bothered to update them, even though at the time of their release several years ago they knew that they would become obsolete in a few years! Or the cynical may suggest that they want their customers to buy or rent the latest version!

Some manufacturers, such as Epson, are in the process of updating at least some of their software.

Even if an app., such as Photoshop CS6, still runs after the system is updated to 'Catalina', you may not be able to re-install it at a later date. It's 'helper' utilities, such as installer and registration utilities will no longer work IF they are bit.

To check if you have any important bit apps:
Open the About This Mac menu as above
Click System Report
Open Software
Click Applications. A List of all Applications (including Utilities) will appear in a window at the top right of the menu. This may take a while as there are a lot of them!
You may need to expand the menu by dragging on the bottom right corner.
Click on Bit (Intel): in the top menu bar, and invert it ('tippy arrow') to show all the non bit (i.e. bit) apps first.
Click on the application you're interested in and information about it appears below. In the app highlighted in the screen shot it is a 'Firmware Updater' from Epson.
Bit (Intel): will say Yes or No. In this case it is 'No'. Is it an important utility? Who knows? Is it still needed, or has it been replaced by something more up to date?

How to Switch Off Automatic Updates

It's probably a bad idea to let macOS automatically update, in view of the likelihood of new bugs.
But how to stop it?
Under the Apple logo, click System Preferences
Click Software Update A new menu appears.
It will then check for new updates.
Turn OFF Automatically keep my Mac up to date. You'll probably need to enter your password.
Click Advanced A new small menu ('page') appears on top.

The following settings are probably ideal:
Automatically:
Turn ON Check for updates.
Turn OFF Download new updates when available.
Turn OFF Install macOS updates.
Turn OFF Install app updates from the App Store.
Turn ON Install system data files and security updates.
Click OK.

Back Up Your System Before Upgrading!

Before upgrading your system it's good practice to upgrade your present system to a separate external drive, either using Apple's own Time Machine, or better still, a professional utility such as the inexpensive Carbon Copy Cloner. Do this onto an external (USB 3, USB-C or Thunderbolt) drive. If the new version of macOS has problems you'll be able to restore the previous version. It's always a good idea to backup images and other important data as well, of course.

Mojave and Catalina Printer Driver Problems

Shortly after the release of Apple's then new version of macOS, , named 'Mojave', in September there were a few worrying reports of 'colours not printing right' from a few customers and also on various photographic fora. Some of these bugs were quickly diagnosed, while others took longer. These new bugs are in addition to the old ones, such as the Airprint printer driver. These bugs were mostly carried over into 'Catalina'.

The Faulty Airprint Printer Driver

As this is probably the oldest and most common Mac printing bug (from way before Mojave was even thought of) we should probably deal with it first.

There are some Mac users who are unable to print without Colour Management problems from various printers. These problems may show when printing our profiling charts using the Adobe utility, or when printing images from Photoshop, Lightroom, or other applications with 'Application Colour Management'. The problem is usually caused by a very basic and faulty Apple printer driver being installed rather than the more sophisticated Epson or Canon one. These basic drivers are often the 'Airprint' ones, which are designed for printing snapshots directly from simple apps using wi-fi, and not for serious photographers who want control over their printing.

The main symtoms are:
1) Very poor colour saturation.
2) Cyans and greens printing very light and unsaturated, with cyan turning towards 'turquoise'.
3) Saturated reds and magentas often printing with cyan in them, with magenta turning towards 'purple'.
4) The 'Color Matching' settings in the menu may sometimes be wrong, and sometimes be selectable when they should be 'greyed-out'.

If you use this Airprint driver you will absolutely not be able to print Profiling Targets or be able to use 'Application Colour Management' in Photoshop, Lightroom, Capture One, etc. The only remedy is to replace it with the correct Canon/Epson/HP driver, IF available.
However, there are some 'consumer' printers for which there are no OEM drivers available for macOS, especially certain Canon models. These include certain (all?) models in the 'Pixma TS' series.

Install the Correct Printer - Basic Method

You'll need to first try the following:

First ensure that you have saved your Printer Presets!

Ensure you have a full Backup of your system using either Apple Time Machine or, even better, the inexpensive Carbon Copy Cloner.

1) In System Preferences/Printers & Scanners delete all Epson, Canon or HP 'printers' (select them and use minus '-' sign).You'll probably be asked for your password.
2) In the same System Preferences/Printers & Scanners menu 'create' a new printer using '+' plus sign. Password probably needed.
It may take some time for all of the relevant printer drivers to show. Some of these may be the faulty Apple drivers, and may be shown as 'Airprint'. You'll need to W-A-I-T for the correct Epson, Canon, etc. driver to appear. If printing over Ethernet it will be shown as 'IP'.

Recall Your Printer Presets

Your Printer Presets are used to save printer settings such as: paper type, resolution, any special settings such as Paper Configuration, etc. They will have an effect on any Custom Printer ICC Profiles you had made! They usually disappear when you delete the printer or its driver! They aren't particularly easy to find and recall from the backup disk either. They could be remade, but you would have had to remember all of them, or to have written them down.

Recall Printer Presets from your backup:
1) They will be in: Home folder (your user name) /Library/Preferences
Will be named in the format: rushbrookrathbone.co.uk
In my case this is: rushbrookrathbone.co.uktylusPro_84DFAA__IP_.plist
2) Drag this file to the same location in your working hard drive.
Say 'Yes' to the question about 'replacing the existing file'.

3) If after the above the saved Presets don't show, you may need to delete the macOS System Caches:
The easiest way to do this is with the free Onyx Utility. Running the 'Maintenance' program in Onyx fixed a problem I had with recalled Printer Presets not showing. Many of us run this utility regularly, especially before and after system upgrades.

More Extreme Measures to Re-install the Printer Driver

If the 'quick-fix' ('Basic Method') to install the correct 'Printer' doesn't work, you should try the following to completely delete and remake the printer driver.

Find the correct driver, if available, on the Epson, Canon, HP Support site, and NOT under your Mac's App Store, which may not be easy for certain printers, especially 'consumer' models. You may have to search the support sites for several different countries, and there is no telling which site is best, as they often change!:
1) Download the latest driver(s) and keep them safe!.
2) In System Preferences/Printers & Scanners delete all Epson, Canon, HP printers (select them and use '-' as shown above).
3) Remove Epson printing applications and utilities from Applications folders, such as EPSON LFP Remote Panel, if installed.
3) Install the Epson, Canon, HP driver you downloaded, and any other Epson, Canon, HP software you use.
4) In System Preferences/Printers & Scanners 'create' a new printer using '+' as shown above.
Follow the information shown above and do not install the 'Airprint' driver, but wait for the correct driver to show.

Canon iPF (and others?) not supported in Catalina?

It appears that the excellent Canon ImagePROGRAF iPF printer (and possibly similar models) isn't yet supported, but the driver will later be updated by Canon, in 'Catalina' (macOS ). This apparently isn't a bit problem?

Apple's own apps Printer Interface Problems - New in Mojave and Catalina

There is ANOTHER bug which may affect users of Apple's own Applications, such as Photos, Preview, etc., only, and only when using 'Mojave' onwards (macOS onwards). A similar problem is found with some applications which don't properly support printing with 'Application Colour Management', such as Affinity Photo.

In Apple's own (and some other) applications a cut-down printer driver may be found, even when 'Airprint' isn't in use, which has much reduced functionality, especially with regard to Colour Management. The work-around is to use more professional, dedicated printing applications to print from! These include Qimage and QTR Print-Tool. Alternatively, do the entire workflow of post-processing and printing in reliable, professional apps such as Lightroom or Capture One.

In recent versions of macOS together with recent versions of Canon, Epson, etc. drivers you should see ALL ('Epson etc. Color Controls') options greyed-out and non-selectable, but 'ColorSync' should be shown as selected, although technically it is only being used behind the scenes, under the control of the application.

If you see this menu you WILL NOT be able to print properly with
Application Colour Management! For information on what the menu should
look like see our pages on 'Printing from Epson or Canon' linked below'.

If you see the other menu, which is called 'Printer Features' when using Epson printers, you will also NOT be able to print properly with that particular app. (Preview, Photos, etc.)! Compare it with the Epson menus on our Epson or Canon Mac pages! It is very different, with no explanation of how the settings relate to normal Epson/Canon/HP ones.

bit Printing with Mojave - (macOS x) Colour Problems

A bug with some (all?) versions of macOS 'Mojave' and verified by me. This definitely affects some (all?) Epsons and possibly other makes of printers. If the bit printing check box is ticked there is a drastic change of colour when compared to previous macOs versions or to normal 8-bit printing. It would seem that there is sometimes a variation colour saturation, especially in reds and also greens. The 'solid' colours, as in my 'Telltale' colour bars appear OK, but the next 'steps' down on a colour chart may all print the same with no change in density or colour. If you wish to print in bit using you should TEST an image by printing in both 8-bit and bit.

Work-arounds and possible fix for bit printing bug:
1) Reinstall the Printer - Basic Method - see above.
2) If the problem persists use 8-bit, as the difference in quality will be minimal.

More information on printing from a Mac:

Printing with Canon - Mac

Printing with Epson - Mac

For information on printing images from Photoshop and Lightroom please see:

Printing from Photoshop CS6

Printing from Lightroom

Please see our Remote Profiling Introduction page for details of our service:

Remote Profiling Introduction.

This page updated November 13,