Today’s Question: The Print button is grayed out in Lightroom Classic. I can print from Photoshop but not Lightroom Classic. How can I fix this?
Tim’s Quick Answer: This is an indication that you have the “Print to” option set to “JPEG File” in the Print Job section at the bottom of the right panel in the Print module. Change that to “Printer” and you’ll be able to print again.
More Detail: The Print module in Lightroom Classic is obviously focused on enabling you to print your photos. Templates can be used as the foundation of creating a print layout, which makes it easy to print a single photo of a given size, to print the same photo multiple times on a page, or to print multiple different photos on a page.
In addition to being able to print your photos based on the layouts you create, you can also generate a JPEG file that reflects the same page layout you might otherwise prepare for print.
This can be very helpful when you need to share photos with clients, for example. You might create a contact sheet layout for a batch of photos, and then generate JPEG files for each page of the print job to deliver via email rather than having to share printed pages with the client.
There are, of course, a wide variety of other ways you might put this feature to use, creating JPEG images based on page layouts with photos designed in the Print module. To “print” to a JPEG image rather than the printed page, select “JPEG File” from the “Print to” popup in the Print Job section of the right panel in the Print module. You can then configure the output settings and click the “Print to File” button to generate the JPEG image(s) based on the current layout.
When you want to print to paper again, simply change the “Print to” popup back to “Printer” and the Print button will be available again.
