Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

Qimage does not support the printing of PDFs.
I understand the reasons why. And thats ok. Please no discussion about this.
But nevertheless sometimes I have the need to print PDFs (mostly PDF/X-4) on different papers.
What might be a good tool (as good as Qimage for jpg, tiffs, raws ) for printing PDFs using icc-profiles for the different papers?

Thanks
Winfried
 

Qimage can print PDF's through the Photoshop plugin: open the PDF in PS and send to Qimage for printing.

Regards,
Mike

Thank you for this "realtime" response.
But I don't use Photoshop (although I licenced the Qimage plugin).

Thanks
Winfried

Most PDF readers have an export feature which allows you export as an image, I use Tracker Software PDF-XChange Editor. There's no colour managent involved though.
Terry

We recently started using Qimage for our new Epson 9570 and are really excited about the possibilities.
I have to admit, I just assumed Qimage would print pdfs directly.
We are a photo lab/graphics shop and print everything from fine art to posters.
If one of our clients sends us a design with graphics it's almost always a pdf. (Trying to do this now as I type)
It doesn't seem that rendering them first in Photoshop should be necessary.
I'm not a programmer but would this be a difficult feature to add?
This would be a very useful feature to have.
Thanks!

Qimage is photo printing software that allows you to arrange and print/nest many photos in a job.  PDF is a document format that has its own formatting, etc. and Qimage doesn't go into that realm (a "document" printing tool that is akin to basically a word processor).  With that said, if you use Photoshop, you can open PDF's in Photoshop and "rasterize" the documents there and then print all pages through the Qimage PS plugin.  So... PDF's can be printed via the PS plugin.

Regards,
Mike

Just bumping this again.

The longer we use Qimage the more we like it. It is so productive in so many ways.

Almost daily we have to print pdfs and have to convert them first.

For anyone who does much commercial printing, this would be an extremely valuable function to have.

We would be happy to do a paid upgrade for the ability to print PDFs.

Are we the only ones?

Not much has changed here.  Qimage is for arranging and printing photos and I don't see the utility in making it a word processor.  What would be the advantage of printing documents in Qimage?  To be honest, I don't really understand.  PDF is a document so why wouldn't you use a document printing program like Acrobat or a PDF document utility for that... and print your photos in Qimage?

Regards,
Mike

There are free online converters to convert from a pdf to, say tiff or jpeg.

Then you can print directly with Qimage.

Just do a web search for "convert pdf to tiff"

I have in the past been asked to print PDFs and found it a little inconvenient that QI doesn't print them directly.

I think that PDFs can be seen in one of two ways:
1 it's a text document made into a convenient format that's easily shared.
2 it's a lossless vector* format that can't be modified making it perfect for graphic designers and illustrators to send to printshops or share with clients. (*I should say that it can be lossless and vector if saved in the right way)

Certainly, there are professional graphic designers and illustrators producing vector graphics who favour sharing images in PDF format to protect their designs/illustrations, which can also be viewed by everyone using any number of widely available PDF viewers.

For me, it's not a big issue as I'm not asked to print many and when I do I just convert it in PS (albeit one extra step in the workflow process that takes time). I can see if I was printing lots of PDFs every day it would get laborious!

Having said that, if I could print PDFs direct from QI that would be great - but for me, it's not a biggie.

I'm still not seeing anything that is answering my question and I'm still confused why anyone would want a photo app to print documents.  What is the benefit of Qimage printing PDF's?  There are plenty of free PDF viewers, printers, Acrobat, etc. that are specifically designed to format your PDF to your printer.  Why would you want to rasterize it into pixels and have a photo application print a document when you can just double click the PDF file in File Explorer and print it straight from your PDF application?

Doesn't make any more sense to me than having Qimage print a Word document or an Excel spreadsheet.

Mike

My 2 cents worth. I too would welcome the ability to print PDFs directly in QI. Here is why the PDFs I sometimes get asked to print are more like photographs in that they need to be printed in a variety of sizes on art paper. Just yesterday someone I print photographs for sent me a couple of PDFs to make into 8x10 and 5x7, they were created 8.5x11. I did exactly as you suggest, I opened in photoshop and exported to Qi and printed. I could have asked the creator to go back and save in some other format but me doing it was easier and more full service. So to me, I can easily work around and am not asking for major programming. I do get why some people ask.
Jason

I can see how some people might fall prey to that line of thinking, but it is still not making sense.  If you format your document as a PDF, you are someone who is not serious about printing photos.  Photos are an afterthought for someone creating PDF's: they are just "illustrations" that they want to print as an adjunct to the document.  No one serious about photography would print photos out of a PDF file!  If you receive a PDF from someone who wants quality photos, you should ask for a photo format like TIFF or even JPEG because their PDF is likely to have low res photos embedded in the PDF, no ICC profile to even indicate the color space of that photo (or the wrong profile), etc.  This is just how it is: when the majority of people are creating PDF files, they are not thinking about photos, photo quality, color, profiles, and so on.

Mike

I've wanted to do this myself and the reason is simple. Qimage has me spoiled. I know my printer settings and color management are set up correctly. Working outside of Qimage it's always more of a guessing game- did I miss something important? That said, I don't even know if color management is maintained as a photo gets inserted into a PDF file, and resolution certainly gets trashed most of the time. The reality is that when I print a PDF nobody really notices or cares about the photo quality. So, even though it might be a handy feature, Qimage probably shouldn't try to be a document processor. I'd rather the focus remained on doing what it does best- printing photos!  :)

Ditto
Me too
Fred

I agree that using the PDF format for photographic images is not good - far better file formats are better suited for that.
But, for graphic vector-type images using the PDF format is legitimate (of course, saved in the right way) and is used by graphic designers and illustrators.

The humble PDF is capable of great things - I don't think that's always realised.

I have a client who is a professional illustrator who I print for - not that often, maybe once or twice a year. He will always send me his images in PDF format. The files are always very good quality and totally scalable. I could print them the full 60" width of my printer if I wanted to because they are vectors. (He uses Adobe Illustrator to produce his work)

I don't see QI as a 'Photo printing app' - I see it as an 'Image printing app'. Calling QI a photo printing app is selling it short!

But for me, on the very odd occasion I'm asked to print a PDF I'll just open it up in PS make it the right size and save it as a PSD, it's not a big issue. I would rather Mike spend his time working on something that will make QI even better! (is that even possible? lol!)

Just as an example, the attached image is one of my client's illustrations. it's not a photographic image, but QI handles it perfectly! This image came to me as a PDF.

Qimage is a photo printing app and an image printing app.  It can already print more image formats than Lightroom.  But I'm not sure how this applies to PDF because PDF is still a document format, not an image format.  There are formats like EPS or SVG that you can use for vector graphics that are more suited for images.  Why put them in the equivalent of a word processor if you just want the vector graphics?  Do it right and use a vector graphics format instead.  Using PDF is akin to sharing your raw photos with someone by putting them in a Word document!  If you do have a PDF with images, there was likely a reason for them to be there due to them being only a part of a document that contains images, vector graphics, and text.  In which case... you are always better off printing them in something like free Acrobat where the vector data can be rasterized (at the right PPI) at print time.  It makes zero sense to rasterize full pages of PDF documents prior to printing and lose the ability of a PDF tool to do things like match printer specific margins, etc..  That's kind of defeating the purpose of a PDF and at that point, is pretty much a guarantee that you are using PDF for the wrong reason.

Mike

Why does Qimage have to be just a photo printing app? I understand that it was designed with just photos in mind but it is so useful for printing everything. The only thing holding it back is the inability to handle PDFs directly.


We are a photo lab that also does commercial printing. We do all of our wide format printing through Qimage. All of our commercial work comes in as PDFs. These get mixed in with our photo printing workflow. The only difference is that we have to convert them before Qimage will handle them.

We also do a fair amount of Dye Sublimation gift items. This can be anything from phone photos of grandkids on Christmas ornaments to business logo PDFs on coffee mugs. The automatic ganging up and automatic print length in Qimage are AMAZING for this work. The fact that Qimage will gang up assorted sized things that are different resolutions is a BIG time saver.

I know we should probably be using a real RIP instead of Qimage in our shop but we really like Qimage and if it handled PDFs it would be nearly perfect.

I don't know much about programming but, would it be a lot of work to add PDF support?

It's a big departure because Qimage is not a word processor.  If it was, we would have called it Qdoc and not Qimage.  :)

Let me ask you a better question: why don't you start using appropriate formats for what you are doing?  PDF format is not an appropriate format for a business logo.  TIFF or PNG are.  You only need PDFs if you are printing preformatted pages with both text and images and you really should be using a document printing program for that.

What you typed is akin to someone saying "I'm remodeling my kitchen so how much trouble would it be for you to add the ability to haul 5 cubic yards of mulch in my Corvette?"  Of course, before even getting into using the right tool for the right job, the manufacturer is probably going to be curious why you need mulch in your kitchen.

Regards,
Mike

Sorry Mike.

Tiffs and Pngs are not appropriate at all for logos. Quite often we have to have a raster version of a logo traced into a vector format in order to scale it for quality printing at a larger size.

We have reproduced client's logos on everything from pens to large banners with the same PDF vector file. Anywhere from less than an inch to many feet from the same file. Raster formats like Tiffs or Pngs do not work at all for this kind of work.

The reason I looked at this today is we're getting ready to print a batch of dye sublimated gift cards that we received, correctly, as pdfs. Qimage is so great to batch print these but I have to convert 50 ready-to-print pdfs to a raster file first.

I know you created Qimage for printing photos but it works great for graphics too.

PDF's are not appropriate for logos.  A logo should be a modular element that can be put IN a document.  A logo should not BE a document!  You want vector, you should be using SVG or another vector image format.  A vector image element that could then be inserted into a PDF, printed (like a photo), etc.

As I said, you should be using the right tools for the right job.  A graphical or vector logo is not a document.

Regards,
Mike

PDF is a CARRIER, and the defacto standard in printing regardless if it is a photo or a document. If you take a file to any place that prints PDF is the standard. It also carries the ICC profile you save. It is an Adobe product, BUT so many open source versions created that it should not be as easy to support as jpeg or tiff. If he were asking to print Illustrator files, I would say he is asking something unique, or InDesign files, or any design making software(although, designs should be OK to print, and PDF is a standard for them to be converted to) I would say Mike is correct. No major gain by adding such. But PDF. Most Adobe files we save as PDF. All photography work that goes to large presses is done in PDF.

Having PDF would be adding more pool of buyers of Qimage no doubt.  I am sure it is available as a software printing engine to add to Qimage. that would be great!!

PDF = Portable Document Format.  That doesn't really need any more clarification but no serious photographer is going to print or submit photographs via PDF!  Full page designs, banners, vector graphics, sure.  But not photos!

In addition, what is the first thing you do when you open, edit, or print a photograph that has been stuffed in a PDF, such as opening the PDF in Photoshop?  You rasterize it.  If you are going to rasterize it, you might as well save your photo in an appropriate photo file format instead of a document.  In fact, saving a photo in a PDF is a bad idea because it is not trivial to extract an image from a PDF at original resolution: most people will end up rasterizing the image at an arbitrary resolution which will degrade the image by resampling it.  Again, might as well save the image in an appropriate "container": an image container and not a document.

And lastly, it's not very smart to use PDF for photos when you have something like Qimage that is much better at auto arranging multiple photos: you don't want to circumvent Qimage's ability to optimize space on a page by rasterizing full pages that have their own formatting and things on them other than the photos you are interested in printing.

Mike

"no serious photographer is going to print or submit photographs via PDF"

ALL serious, pro, or what have you... or ANYONE who goes to print in a magazine, or calendar, or anything offset press, and that would be ALL work that gets work published get submitted to print in PDF format.

There is no if, and, or but about this.

If we want to see how our photos look like before we send it off, it only makes sense to see it in the format we submit the work in.

I would pay for an upgrade copy if it had PDF as a format able to print, regardless of how it limits my auto arranging.

Magazines, calendars, press.  All documents, none of which have "photo quality" as a high concern.

The biggest question here is (at the risk of sounding like a broken record), why aren't you using the tools appropriate for the job?  Specifically, why aren't you using Acrobat or an equivalent document tool to print documents?  Why would you be willing to pay extra to get a photo tool to handle documents?  Qimage is designed to produce gallery quality printed photographs, not print newspapers.  You wouldn't ask Picaso to paint in your newspaper would you, in a little box next to some text from a printing press?

I'm genuinely curious why anyone thinks they need photographic printing software to be a makeshift word processor.  I have to understand the need before I can do anything meaningful.  A better mousetrap kinda thing.  If I owned a convenience store and someone came in asking me for a pickle and a tiny lasso made from sewing thread, I'd probably ask them what they need it for so I can best help them.  When they say they need to catch a mouse, they'd be very happy when I showed them what a mousetrap is and explained that peanut butter may work better than a pickle.

Mike

_Magazines, calendars, press.  All documents, none of which have "photo quality" as a high concern."
Color accuracy is a big concern. And PDF's I print are usually SWOP/CMYK, so its always iffy if the printer will print it right using the ICC or its own. Setting it in the printer can be a issue at times.
Maybe something I should learn better to do.

QImage gives me more versatility in printing, and you mentioned in previous post, but Would a PDF file not allow for multiple PDF files to be printed together?

I have 2 different RIP softwares that  I use for work. At home I can afford the crazy $ it costs, but they do rasterize and mimic the press.

Most of my work goes to press, so its why I would find it helpful. Stay in one print app to manage all printing. I have a laser printer to manage "Documents"

I guess it maybe too much a hassle. Thought it would be worth asking, requesting, and most importantly understanding more. I think I got the gist of your reasoning, which I don't think should limit this file type. being so commonly used by art and designers, photographers. But everyone has their reasoning.

Comment from the peanut gallery, worth every cent you've paid for it. I'm the photographer, not the volume  printer. When I give images to the layout people, I give them sRGB jpg files, knowing there won't be any color space problems. I may have edited them with Qimage. Or not. They probably create pdfs for the print house, but I don't know that and don't care. I have a suspicion that they sometimes send Publisher or Word files. Sometimes I send images to a printing firm that does huge panels for show booths. Again, I sent sRGB jpg files because everybody knows how to deal with that. I certainly don't send pdf documents for various reasons, one of which being too many ways to lose quality. My hope is that the printer uses Qimage or something like it (is there such a thing?) but my guess is they don't, and probably print from a photo editor like PS.

Every now and then somebody gives me images as a pdf file. My first thought is, "I wish they hadn't." My second thought is, "Darn, how do I get the images out of that file with the least degradation possible."

I understand the desire to print everything from Qimage, including pdf files, because it does such a good job. If that feature came with zero detractions from every other aspect of the program, I'd like it too. Somehow I doubt that would be the case. FWIW, Affinity Photo will let you open and print a pdf file. The first step is to choose a dpi (with a maximum of 400), a color model and whether to favor editable text, plus some other stuff. Always makes me wonder if I've made the right choices.

This is a problem for me as the developer too.  That's why I was trying to get a handle on how (and why) people who want to print photos are using PDF.  Often times I find that people will ask for something and not tell you the reason and once you find the reason, the solution isn't what they proposed and there is a better way.

Anyway, when dealing with PDF in something like Qimage, I (and the software) will have to deal with the same pitfalls.  The document is not a photo and you want to get a photo out of it.  So... the first question is, if a photograph is embedded in a PDF, it is not a vector graphic so what is the native resolution of the photo inside the PDF?  Can I extract the photo from the PDF at its native resolution and not be forced to pick a "resolution" and risk damaging the file with poor quality (Adobe) resampling?  Or does the user have to give a resolution (like 300, 600, etc.) and hope that's enough for the photo and hope that PDF resampling isn't a lot worse than what Qimage offers?  Was the person who created the PDF mindful (and experienced enough) to embed the ICC profile for each photo when they put it in the PDF?  If the PDF contains multiple photos, does each one (potentially) have a different embedded ICC profile?  Assuming someone did it right, how does Qimage extract all the photos at native resolution WITH the embedded profile for each?  PDF is not an open format (see below).

These are not trivial questions/issues that arise because PDFs are just not the right place to store photos for printing and there may be many compromises particularly if people are submitting PDFs to you: their motive is to produce a document... not photos.  So did they do all the above properly?

And then again, the bottom line is that PDF is an Adobe abomination of a document format.  Like everything else Adobe, PDF is not open source and you are limited to what Adobe wants to give you as far as PDF specs.  So why not use Acrobat if you are dealing with PDFs because that's the Adobe product designed to handle this Adobe document format?

People serious about their photos and wanting high quality prints of them are never going to embed them in a PDF for the above reasons (and I probably missed some).  Magazines and other full-page document formats are a different story: PDFs work well for those.  But again, why wouldn't you just use Acrobat which is designed for documents if you don't want to print photos but rather designed pages?

Regards,
Mike

"Magazines and other full-page document formats are a different story: PDFs work well for those.  But again, why wouldn't you just use Acrobat which is designed for documents if you don't want to print photos but rather designed pages?"

Because Acrobat doesnt allow me to put 2 files next to each other on 1 sheet, or max the use of left over paper with ease.  I get around it by changing the document page and such on some things, but others you simply cannot without a fuss.

Sometimes I have multiple spreads running in multiple magazines, so I want to print 2 or 4 of them in one well spaced out print. SO QImage would have been a solution.

Also, I am often not sure of what ICC is being applied via just Acrobat and the Printer driver. Does it use ICC, No ICC, Etc...This stuff is more CLEAR on QImage , and why we have bought it, and suport it by paying for it every couple years or more.

I didn't realize its that hard to implement it. Acrobat is so old and the old engine PDF-X1A-2001 is still the standard, AND it is used by numerous free copies of Acrobat, as it is so old there are many alternatives.

Either way, Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!!