poor photo quality with high sierra

I agree!

I can open a photo in "Preview" and select the "Quality & Media" tab and set "Print Quality" to "High" and the photo is printed in high quality no "Faint lines".

I can open the same photo in "Photos" and the "Quality & Media" tab does not exist. Instead I get "Printer Features". In "Printer Features" I can change the quality between "Fast", "Normal", "Fine" and "Super Fine". I select "Super Fine" and it seems to print in "Normal" and I see the "Faint lines" I assume Tracey is seeing in her prints.

In addition, I had selected "Borderless 4x6" in the "Photos" program and the print out was 4x6 with a white border. When I printed "Borderless" from "Preview" I got a borderless print.

Just got off the phone with Apple. Turns out (at least for me) that the problem was not the printer, the computer, or even Photos. I had installed a program (Printopia) that made my iOS devices think that the printers attached to my Mac were all AirPrint printers. It seems that doing so forces the MacOS to use a network print driver instead of the normal USB print driver. These network drivers are not 100% compatible with Printopia. At the advice of the helpful tech support guy, I deselected my photo printer from Printopia, deleted the printer from System Prefs, and then re-installed it. All is well now. Only those printers that really need to be shared with Printopia are being shared. The Epson is now dedicated only to photos.

Hopefully, this will be helpful to others who have attempted to salvage their trusty and workable printers by making them appear to be AirPrint printers.

Hi Tracey,

I just tried printing from "Photos" using "Fine" quality instead of "Super Fine" and it printed borderless and in high quality. My hypothesis at the moment is that "Super Fine" is an illegal option in "Printer Features" (at least for my printer).

I hope this helps.

My next task is trying to figure out how to have it set the quality to "Fine" by default.

I have this same problem too, which started since upgrading from Sierra to High Sierra. In Photos I agree that the solution is to export to pdf and then print via Preview. But I have also noticed that pdf export also reduces the resolution of images. So when I pdf export from Photos to Preview and then print, at least the colours are correct and the faint lines are not there, but if you examine the pdf closely on screen the image is downgraded - presumably slightly lower dpi than the original - annoying.

I think there are 2 bugs. One is the print menu in Photos which no longer uses the installed printer's drivers for printing, but defaults to a generic driver, hence the funny menu. The 2nd is pdf export in High Sierra in general, which is broken across all applications and results in reduced quality images (600 dpi?) being embedded in all pdf outputs - you have to really zoom in to see the difference. Apparently Apple are trying to unify across OSX and iOS, so I am guessing that they introduced the 2nd bug deliberately to the pdf output system to lead to smaller file sizes. I think I will try downgrading to Sierra (nervous about it though), since these 2 bugs combined are too much to bear for my workflow and home usage. I want the original image quality!! It was one major reason to use a Mac over a PC.

Your printer may need cleaned.

Why would you export to PDF? Just export the original or modified photo. Printing the photo file from preview works fine.

Bummer, I feel your frustration. Check the other "Advanced Features" and see if anything else jumps out. Print resolution? Paper type?

Either way it still seems to me that this is a problem with "Photos". Printing from anywhere else in macOS seems straight forward. It is bizarre that the one program you would expect to print from the most has this issue. The printing options should be simpler in "Photos"!

I have wrestled with this issue ever since giving up on my very old Mac Pro (2006), on which I used Aperture with great results. I thought at first that my Epson Stylus Photo 1400 was to blame and went to extraordinary lengths to clean the print heads. I was just about to junk the printer tonight when I tried the PDF route. To my surprise, the print came out without streaks! However, saving to PDF and printing from Preview is not the solution I need. It is a waste of disk space, to say the least.

What I have noticed from trying different print settings in Photos is that it seems to print at high speed no matter what settings I use. Truly upsetting since I resisted tanking my old Mac Pro in order to keep using Aperture. I will be taking this up with Apple in the morning. Photos, so far, has been a poor substitute for Aperture in so many respects. Having to have at least two other photo editing programs to fill in the deficiencies of Photos is bad enough. Not being able to print with any quality from Photos is not acceptable. Apple needs to do much better.

To stave off those who would suggest Adobe products, please understand that I have a great reticence for subscription programs. They may be cheaper in the short term, but end up costing the end user far more in the long term.

Photos, so far, has been a poor substitute for Aperture in so many respects

I wouldn't go with that argument. Apple will tell you it's not intended as a substitute for Aperture - who subs a $79 app with a freebie? Apple simply walked away from the pro/serious hobbyist market in software.

What's the dimensions of the Photo being printed in pixels?

What size are you printing at, in inches?