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Author Topic: Newbie Lightroom to Qimage Ultimate workflow  (Read 10287 times)
bodtwo
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« on: October 12, 2010, 08:03:07 AM »

Morning All,

New to Qimage (and DSLR and Printing) and i'm wondering if i have the correct workflow for my set up.

Canon 500D
Lightroom 3.2
Qimage Ultimate (trial)
Canon Pixma Pro 9000 MkII
Canon original Inks
Canon Premium Photo Paper II A3

I use Lightroom 3.2 to import my RAW images, i normally look at white balance and Lens correction and have set up Qimage as an external editor. When i'm ready to print i select external edit and pass the 'edited' file to Qimage. I seem to remember the settings were Tiff and 600DPI.

I pass the image to Qimage (which takes an age) set up my paper, check the printer driver is set up correctly (ie let Qimage mange the print) and then print the file to Canon Pixma Pro9000 Mark II. The images are very good, but i'm wondering if this is the optimum workflow for my set up and whether creating Tiff is causing the long delay between selecting external editor in Lightroom and the image being available in Qimage.

Thanks for any help with this.
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Fred A
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« Reply #1 on: October 12, 2010, 09:26:05 AM »

Quote
I use Lightroom 3.2 to import my RAW images, i normally look at white balance and Lens correction and have set up Qimage as an external editor. When i'm ready to print i select external edit and pass the 'edited' file to Qimage. I seem to remember the settings were Tiff and 600DPI.
Good morning,
I am probably not the best person to answer you since I am a 100% Qimage person.
Many like Lighroom, mainly for its ability to keep you images stored in a sensible manner.
Obviously, you turned to Qimage because you were not satisfied with the prints from LR.

First of all, you can easily let Qimage read the card from the camera and download the images from the card. All you have to do is give your new folder a name.
Second, Qimage (I assume the Ultimate version) immediately develops your raw files. If you think they need some tweaking, you open REFINE with one click, and refine the image with White Balance, exposure adjustment (again each of those with one click), add fill light if needed, and HDR slider to improve any lost detail.

Here's the best part.
You tell qimage ultimage what size print you want. You set the driver to paper type, quality level, and yes or no on color controls (depending on whether you use printer profiles), and print.
There is no upsampling to 600 ppi, there is no double interpolating which degrades the image, nor any other pre printing file needed.
You can crop the print or the image using Qimage Ultimate.
Qimage will save the settings you used for the printer, the JOB, the paper settings, all of it.
Last but not least, you will get the best prints ever!!

I realize that you are accustomed to Light Room, and it wont be easy to convince you. You have to convince yourself. That's what the trial version is for.
Oh, by the way, Qimage Ultimate has Tone targeted sharpening, and also beats ACR (the raw processor used in LR and CS5) to process and develop your raws.

Thank you for listening.
There's loads of help on here.
Convince yourself!

Fred
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bodtwo
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« Reply #2 on: October 12, 2010, 11:59:11 AM »

Hi Fred,

thank you for the reply. I'm keen to stay with LR (for now) as i've set workflow for imports and applying lens corrections and such, but i would like to know more of Qimage and how that could help. I'm fairly certain that when i go with Qimage, it will begin to eat away at how i use LR and evetualy take over but i think that will be a long process. To do it all at once would be too many parameters for my head to cope with!

Cheers.
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Terry-M
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« Reply #3 on: October 12, 2010, 05:23:40 PM »

Hi,
Quote
but i would like to know more of Qimage and how that could help
The main thing here is superior quality prints  Cool
You said originally:
Quote
I seem to remember the settings were Tiff and 600DPI.
It is important as Fred said that you do not re-sample your image in any way prior to sending to Qimage.
If the 600ppi you refer too is the is the number reported from the driver above the Qimage page preview on the main screen, that is what to expect; it is the Native Resolution of the Canon printer. Qimage prints are top quality because it re-samples to this resolution as it sends the image to printer and does it with a unique top class algorithm.

There are others here who use LR so they will tell you their work flow and perhaps why it takes so long for LR to pass an image to Qimage.
Quote
I'm fairly certain that when i go with Qimage, it will begin to eat away at how i use LR and eventually take over but i think that will be a long process. To do it all at once would be too many parameters for my head to cope with!
Get the printing sorted first but raw processing is not that difficult in Qimage, in fact it's far simpler than most other converters I've used. Again, Mike's clever mathematics do a lot of the work for you and the the concept of clicking areas of the image to refine the conversion is unique as far as I know - it's fast! The best part is in terms of simple work flow, is that there's no need to convert to another format (unless you've some really fancy editing to do), print from the raw file.
Terry.
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DdeGannes
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« Reply #4 on: October 12, 2010, 06:22:19 PM »

I tested it on my system (see details in my signature).
LR took 3.5 seconds to create the single tiff file, next it took around 3 to 4 seconds for Qimage to boot and display the tiff in the print queue. The "edit in" function in LR does not do any upsampling of the image. The OP said he set the output to 600ppi but this makes no difference to the file size or resolution. Qimage would resample to 600DPI when printing to the Canon printers.

Based on my knowledge of both programs I would recommend that the user leave any resizing and final print sharpening to Qimage. Also he has invested in LR already both in the purchase and development of a workflow which may include special presets for processing his raw files on import. LR also provides very good sharpening and noise reduction tools. LR uses a totally non-destructive process (as does Qimage).
« Last Edit: October 12, 2010, 06:35:34 PM by DdeGannes » Logged

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Terry-M
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« Reply #5 on: October 12, 2010, 06:40:06 PM »

Hi Dennis & bodtwo,
Quote
LR also provides very good sharpening and noise reduction tools.
I find that Qimage does too, what with customising the raw NR and USM for your camera(s), plus the NR tools in the editor and now Tone Targeted sharpening, that latter being a world beater imho.
The other feature that helps to get top class print that I forgot to mention, is Smart Final Print sharpening, set it and leave it for all prints.
All good reasons to transfer to Qimage Ultimate which is a bargain price.
Terry
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Ken
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« Reply #6 on: October 12, 2010, 11:59:35 PM »

Hello Bodtwo,

I am also a QIU & LR3 user. A while back I posted the work flow that works for me using both products. Here is the link if you are interested..
http://ddisoftware.com/tech/qimage-ultimate/qimage-ultimate-works-well-with-lightroom/

Since that post, more improvements have been made to QIU..substantial improvements! I use LR because in addition to posting my photos to a site that has a LR plug-in, I create show DVD's for my clients that also has a plug-in. The time savings just using those plug-in's (for me) is substantial.

That being said, there is NO photo that I process for printing, or special showing, that is not edited and/or printed using QIU! Since I keep allot of photos for potential future use, they are all cataloged in LR. But the select quality photos have ALL been touched by QIU.

Test for yourself. Don't discount the use of QIU because you use LR. Use the best products available for your work. Other than for special effects editing & cataloging/keywording, a serious photographer would only require QIU to obtain the highest quality image! Now with HDR in QIU, even special effects has become a reality! Exceptional value
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