[cups] Printing quality differences when printing pdf using CUPS and app on MacOS

[Gregory Morse]

Greetings. I have a strange situation I'm trying to find if anybody can
help with.

I am printing the same PDF file on MacOS Catalina in two different ways: 1)
Using CUPS on the command line and 2) using an app on the mac, i.e. Adobe
Acrobat Pro or Adobe InDesign. Both are generally working well, but there
is a small, but important issue. When I print the files using CUPS the
print quality is slightly degraded compared to the output from CUPS, it's
subtle, but different. What I've noticed is that the output from CUPS is
the same as the output when printing from the Apple Preview App. So for
some reason Apple Preview and CUPS print the file differently than Adobe
InDesign and Acrobat. It's so strange, a PDF is a PDF right? Any
suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

- Gregory

Gregory Morse
gmorse at morseinc.com