Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

Hi,

Today I stumbled into a problem.
Have several images to print witch are around 3x1meters and over 30000px on the longest side. Qimage Ultimate doesn't load them, gives me an error. All other image programs load these images perfectly.

I am wondering, is Qimage ultimate limited to loading image files up to a certain number of pixels only? If so, what's the máx. image size it can load?

It's a bit strange to me to find that I can setup a paper size i.e. 110x500cm, but can't actually load an image that can print to that size!

I am printing on an Epson 9900, any alternatives to go around this issue?
Should I drop Qimage and go back to image editors?

Thanks in advance.

Need some information.
What type of file? TIF JPG, PSD ?
What is the other dimension? Is it 30,000 x 10,000 pixels?
** Does the thumbnail show an Image Read Error, or the thumb is OK but you get a different error?

If I just do arithmetic, guessing at the other dimension, I get a 900 megabyte file.
Depending on your computer resources, that may be too large.
.... If you get an Image Read error, there are other reasons that are correctable.

Fred

Hi Fred,

I got two situations:

1) On some images Qimage shows the thumbnail, I can load it into the page, when hit print I get an error message that Qimage can't read the image
2) On the bigger images, Qimage can't load the thumb at all and gives me the Image Read Error in Red instead of the thumbnail.

What puzzles me is that on the same machine, IrfanView can load all these images perfectly, same for Photoshop, etc.

Here is a print screen showing a folder with the images that fail.
(http://www.palmela2011.com/wp-content/ficheiros/Qimage_fails_to_open.jpg)

The file names shows the dimension in cm (PBorealis_8_300x76.tif) that's 300x76cm
The last column shows the dimensions in pixels, I even reduced to below 30000px just in case that was a barrier like Photoshop some years ago.

If other programs can load the images on the same machine, why is Qimage failing?

As anyone found out if there is a limit in size for images that Qimage can open?

They do not look too large, so we will proceed on the basis that it might be just an improper SAVE AS A TIF from Photo Shop.
if I could get my hands on one image, the smallest one that is a problem, I would have the answer very quickly.
Can you use the fre version of YOUSENDIT,com or similar.?
My email is wathree.ssz@verizon.net

In the meantime, if you could just see if the TIFs were saved like this, it would help. See attachment

Fred

Other programs like Irf and PS can load images saved in a Mac type format.

There's no real size limit in Qimage. You run out of computer resources before we worry about file size.
I have see Qimage Ultimate print a 1.2 gig file as long as there was enough memory and processing power.
Have you rechecked the TIF save parameters?

Yes,

Just ordered more RAM to this machine to see if it works now.

Thanks for all the help.

Bumping RAM to 4GB on that machine allowed it to open some of the images that previously failed.
Still, it's a pity that the bigger images still fail.

Also, just happened to me now that I printed 6 pages 100x90cm with two images on each page, and on a couple of them, one of the images came out white, i.e., that image failed to print.

Problem is, I have a folder with over 600 images to print, where can I find the Qimage printing log so that I check what images where on that batch to figure out which ones failed to print?

Hi Carlos,
Qimage can tell you the largest file that your SYSTEM can handle.
Click Help, the with the Shift key held down, click Analize Current Settings.
I get 2000MB on Windows 7-64 with a quad core machine wit 6GB of ram.
To check the actual image size that relates to this figure: (Horizontal Mpixels x Vertical Mpixels) x3 (for RGB) = MB
Normally, if you exceed this system limit, Q will tell you that you are out of resources.

The automated job log found in File- Open Automated Job Log ... You can also access it using the Recall icon, top left.
If you've had blank prints, it's worth looking at Help - Troubleshooting and checking your spooling settings.
Terry.

Just looked at your screen shot, the largest image gives 663MB.
Which Windows OS are you using? If it's XP, it may not allow that much although I had more than on an older PC; later Windows OS do a better job of memory management.
I suspect there are other problems with you images with respect to compatibility Mac to Windows  ???
Terry

Yes, all these files where produced on a Mac and are now printing on a Windows XP Machine.
I guess I better replace that machine with a new Sandybridge processor and 16GB of RAM in the next couple of weeks.

But for now, I will have to manage with it.

You guys are great and where very helpful, a big thank you.

I am very busy at the moment printing over 300 panoramic print for several exhibitions to be feature on the Palmela 2011 - International Panoramic Photography Festival that starts next week in Palmela, Portugal.

If some of you guys are around, drop us a visit :)

http://www.palmela2011.com (http://www.palmela2011.com)


PS: I didn't introduce myself properly, I am a panoramic photographer from Lisbon, Portugal, currently director of the IVRPA.org and organizer of the Palmela2011 festival. I do own a large format print center and have been printing for many years using all sort of printers and RIPs, but last week I bought this Epson 9900 just to print the festival exhibitions in HDR and of course Qimage looked very well suited for the job and the quality of the images coming out of the printer is just amazing.

Looks like with your help, I will manage to make it on time :)

Once again, thanks.

Looks like the issue with some blank prints I am getting is related with 16bit RGB files.

I am not 100% sure, but I spoted some files that open perfectly on Qimage and spool to the printer, but come out blank on paper, and it does look to me this is related with 16 bit RGB files.

Is there are known issue with 16bit RGB files?

Can Qimage only print 8bit TGB files?

A far as I know, there are no issues with 16 bit files.
Qimage will convert a 16 bit image to 8 bit for printing.
See Mike's article here http://ddisoftware.com/tech/articles/september-2009-digital-photography-reality-check-308/
Terry

Let's find out if QU is really sending blank (white) image data or if the driver is making it white!  I suspect QU is sending the proper image and the driver is failing (probably on memory available).  Change QU over to "Print to file" via the "File" menu and set up a simple page like your 110 x 500cm but make the page only 100 PPI so the page itself doesn't take up much memory.  Then print your 16 bit file(s) to pages and see if they are white there.  If they look OK, then your printer driver probably needs some tweaking to handle large pages/images: see http://ddisoftware.com/tech/articles/april-2010-understanding-your-photo-printer/

Mike

Thanks Mike,

I will try that.

I'd also be interested in seeing how much memory is actually available in your OS.  Installing more than 2 GB on XP doesn't do too much in many cases.  Click "Help" in QU and then hold the shift key while you choose "Analyze Current Settings".  Let us know the numbers you get: they will tell us how much memory your OS has available at the time.

Mike

The numbers I am currently getting on this machine are:

Start:816MB
Addl: 328MB
Now: 145MB

Holy gasping for memory Batman!  Those are the lowest numbers I've ever seen!  Most well configured XP machines show 1200 to 1600 MB (1.2 to 1.6 GB) for the start and now numbers.  The lowest "now" number I've seen is about 450MB on really old machines running low memory.  What this means is that Windows only has 145 MB available for Qimage  Ultimate to work with.  Do you have oodles of other big programs running or is there anything you can think of that would be eating memory?  Obviously Qimage Ultimate isn't using 671MB of RAM when it starts either so it sounds like the machine is starting other processes or loading other things in the background when you start a program.  I'd start by looking at the config of that machine to get the initial 816MB number up and that may also take care of the "missing" 671MB between "start" and "now" as well.  If you have 4 GB of RAM on that machine and only 816MB are available to any given program (before you even start QU), that's where the problem lies.

Mike

fwiw, I upgraded my venerable xp pc a year or two ago to 4 GB ram. I've just done a quick check, I get 1221 MB for start and now. Running ps and other stuff does not seem to effect that value, and I've a fair number of background tasks running. I can't now remember the details of the manipulations I did to get the pc to see more memory, but there are plenty of answers on the web. iirc ps can utilise the extra memory, but normally the pc can only see the 3GB. Also, Irfanview, unless you set it otherwise, will open embedded jpegs, and not the actual file (at least with canon raws). (I'm not running Ultimate, however, but I guess the overheads are similar to Studio).

Just confirming what Mike said, you need to somehow get that extra memory functioning for QI.

Best wishes,

Ray

somehow my post was duplicated - it wasn't that great  :D

Mike,

My numbers are even worse:

Start:482MB
Addl: 448MB
Now: 482MB

I am also running XP Pro with 4GB Ram & additional 1024MB (on 2nd HD). When I check Task Manager/Performance, the PC never uses even 2GB of RAM. It has been this way for over a year now and my system never crashes.
AMD Phenom II X2 550 3.11 GHz processor.

What puzzles me though, I have tried to crash it by opening:
QIU (loaded with images)
PS
LR
ProShow Producer
Infanview
and several other smaller programs at once to see how far it will go.

With all of those open, I can still print photos from QIU...However, they are not the extremely large prints that some of your clients print. My current limit is 13x19 (Canon Pro9000 Mark II).

I have changed my boot (experimenting) to the 3GB switch which gives me an additional 400MB..Start:883 Approx if I remember. Point is, I cannot get the QI memory number to increase. Not a current problem since it does not affect my work, but if anyone has a recommendation, short of going to Windows 7, I would welcome the advice.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/gg487503.aspx  refers to XP and other os ram limits.
Below is my boot.ini file

boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /3GB /fastdetect /noguiboot

Afaik, they dropped the PAE after sp2 (or maybe it was sp1 - I'm on sp3). noexecute implies it any way.

Other things, set the swap/page file to a disk other than the the OS, if possible. You can get there by: - my computer, system properties, advanced, performance settings, advanced, virtual memory, change . I've actually allocated an 8GB partition to the paging file, with an initial size of 4000MB as a custom size. Others may argue about letting the system manage the size - I'm just saying what works for me. Also set the memory usage and processor scheduling to 'programs' (on the last 'advanced' window).

You may also need to change your bios settings. If you still have less memory than you think you should have available, then I would suggest you do the three fingered salute, and check what processes you have running. Some software does not close properly, and still leaves memory allocated. Some devices may also use shared memory, but hopefully not many these days.

hth.

Best wishes,

Ray

Ray,

Thank you!

I used your boot.ini 3GB switch and immediately increased my numbers:

Start:1073MB
Addl: 482MB
Now: 1073MB

Obviously the 3GB switch that I found on the net some time ago had a flaw.

I already have my swap file 1024MB going to my 2nd drive. My system never uses all of the RAM as it is. At least as far as I know, checking the Windows stats. Don't see the need to increase that. RAM is much faster anyway.

I sure do appreciate you sharing your setting with me. That is the best memory number I have ever had using the QI memory checker.

Thank you again Ray! I am always willing to learn!

Ken

Actually, those numbers are much better than Carlos' numbers because he only had 145MB available to QU and you had 482.  I've seen values in the mid to high 400's before so while that was (I see you improved it) pretty bad, it's not horrible.  Notice though that you had 448 additional.  That means that you've got decent memory: it was just fragmented.  The three numbers in the report show the largest contiguous chunk of memory available.  That's because Windows will refuse to allocate memory unless it's in one contiguous chunk so if you try to allocate memory for a 500MB image, Windows will simply return an error if the largest contiguous chunk is only 482MB.  I know... not very nice of Mr. Gates but that's what we have to work with. 

So your report above indicated that the largest contiguous chunk of memory was 482MB but that the next largest (after that) was 448MB.  Fortunately the 64 bit operating systems like Vista x64 and Win7 x64 are much better about this.  If you have more than about 3 GB of RAM installed on those x64 OS's and you do this check in QU, you get 2000MB for the start/now every time.  That's because 2GB is the largest chunk of memory that is "allocatable" to a 32 bit process and those OS's are smarter and will allow the max every time due to better memory management.

Mike

Thank you for the information Mike.

I have been holding out purchasing Windows 7. Especially after your great review some time back :). Maybe it's time to take the plunge. I don't know.."If it ain't broke...."

It still puzzles me how even the little I have in the way of available system memory according to QI (obviously not as much as most others), my programs still worked well after loading everything but the kitchen sink. I value your expertise, so, if you have the time you have a student...or just point me somewhere you trust.

I'm glad my numbers are now up, but I did not have a problem before, other than the low numbers I got from the memory check.

Mike,

Turns out this machine only had 2GB of RAM  :-[

Just installed 4GB RAM and now my numbers are:

Start: 816MB
Addl: 328MB
Now: 816MB