Thanks to both of your for your replies. Unfortunately I'm a victim of my own bad planning and managed to run myself out of time just now but will reply further as soon as I have time again later today.

I've attached a screen shot of the print-to-file dialog. That's my goal here: I want to print to a Fuji Frontier printer, so I need to save a high-quality output file from QU, with its outstanding sharpening. This particular Fuji Frontier's custom profile tends to produce somewhat lackluster results, unfortunately. The original image is not so lackluster. So I decided to try an experiment in which I use not the custom profile but Adobe RGB instead — since that's what the file was converted to when I exported it to TIFF format from Capture One. So here it is in QU as well.

In the dialog, you see the Adobe (meaning Adobe RGB) button accessible within the Output File Format area. When you click it, "Adobe RGB (P)" appears in the "Clr space" field. I assume that "P" stands for "printer" though I don't know for sure. If you click the sRGB button, this appears within the field instead: "sRGB IEC61966-2.1 (P)*". (Not sure what the "*" means.)

The question is why does the program not change the image size when the newly entered dimension is larger than the current dimension? That is the problem.

It changes the image size if the dimension is being reduced compared with the current one. It does not change the image size if the dimension is increased. (I am not trying to exceed the page size itself.)

Current width dimension: 7"
Enter new width dimension: 6.5"

Result: this works. The program adjusts the other dimension, maintaining the aspect ratio. The image is now smaller.

versus:

Current width dimension: 7"
Enter new width dimension: 7.5"

Result: this does NOT work. The program changes the 7" dimension to 7.01"—but does not change the other dimension. The image is not enlarged. (Again, these changes do not exceed the overall page width.)

Qimage Ultimate v2020.109 — Win 10 Pro

The first attached screen shot shows a consistent result this evening when I have turned on soft proofing and then when I click the red "X" to switch it off. The only way to recover is to close the program. Fortunately so far it has closed without further crashes. This has never happened before tonight.

The second attached screen shot displays what happened when I ran the program again, restored previous settings, and tried to drag the same image as before into the page. There were probably 30 or so of those "list index out of bounds" dialog boxes, not all of them visible. I'd click the close box of one and the next one would appear. Finally I closed the last one and the access violation dialog shown in the other screen shot was the result. I again closed the program normally via its own close box.

Kind of dead in the water here. What now?

Qimage 2020, version 2020.109. (Windows 10 pro; Lenovo P50 laptop, if it matters.)

My goal: create a print-to-file image; this will go to an outside service. I won't be printing to my own inkjet printer. There's something happening in QU's full page editor that I don't understand.

I start with one image in the queue, then open the FP editor. The page size is 8x10, landscape. The image (also landscape) as brought into the queue is by default 6.02H" x 9.02W". Placement is Freehand. I click the "Center on physical page" button. Now I want to experiment with the image size and margins a bit.

Under "Siz/Loc" I enter 8 in the left-hand text field, then click "Apply to: Selected." Result: the other dimension changes to 5.33. (expected)

Under Size/Loc I enter 7 in the left-hand text field, then click Apply to: Selected. Result: the other dimension changes to 4.67. (expected)

That leaves margins that are a bit too wide, so I decide to enlarge the image a bit by increasing the longer dimension. I enter 7.5 in the left-hand text field under Size/Loc.
Expected result: The long dimension should increase to 7.5 with the short dimension increasing accordingly.
Actual result: That doesn't happen. The long dimension changes to 7.01 and the short dimension remains at 4.67.

As long as the newly entered size under Size/Loc is greater than the current one, this continues to happen. The program does not enlarge the image that way. It will "agree" only to reduce.

To work around it, for now I drag the image's corner handles until it is too large, then reduce it by entering lesser values under Size/Loc. Is that all working as intended? If so, why does it work that way? What is the intent?

> Saved layouts can be used by clicking "Custom", "Layout" on the "Size" tab.

As I understand it now, the sequence including the full names of the UI elements in question:

1. In the main window, click the Prints tab to display the list of image sizes.
2. In the list of sizes, click Custom to open the Special Sizes dialog.
3. In that dialog, within the Sizing Method column, select LAYOUT.
4. Click OK.

Qimage then displays the current list of layouts. The Special Sizes dialog refers to both layouts and page sets and the file/open dialog refers to them as page sets — files with the extension ".tpl". (On the other hand, In Qimage's Recall dialog, these files are referred to only as layouts)

Thanks for that. The "Template" item was not in view during these sessions with the program, due to images in the thumbnails panel being above it.

Following your instructions I was able to create a template. Saving it doesn't seem to preserve the 8x10 page size I used when creating it. QU is defaulting to an 11x14 page size for print-to-file.
• Is there a control to include the page size when saving the template and thus recall the page size later?
(But without including any particular images.)

In the Recall dialog, when I select "L" for Layout, I see a note reading:

Saved layouts can be used by clicking "Custom", "Layout" on the "Size" tab.

After puzzling over this for a while I realized that there seems to be an error in the note in the Recall dialog. The tab in question is named "Prints," not "Size." I wonder if this could be changed in an upcoming revision.

• Is selecting "Prints > Custom > Layout" and then specifying a particular template/layout file functionally identical to (1) clicking the Recall icon at the top left of the main page, then (2) opening a particular template/layout file? It seems identical — but QU is a complex program and I don't want to make a wrong assumption.

I have observed something perplexing in the editing screen when there's more than one image per page. Once I've finished with the above questions I could ask about that...

I opened the program just now. It restored a previously used 11x14 page size and a previously selected 4x5 print size. (Note: It is still in "print to file" mode.)

The 4x5 "placeholders" for images are located at the moment in an arrangement of Qimage's choosing. The label "Freehand" appears in the center.

The last 4x5 "placeholder" for an image, at the bottom of the page, has small thin left- and right-facing arrows at its left and right edges. These red arrows do not appear to be selectable or usable in any way via the mouse. (What is their purpose?)

Regarding "use the last thumbnail in the screen folder marked TEMPLATE>" — I don't see the word "template" on the screen. I've been searching all over the main window for it but cannot find it. Then I searched the menu system. Hovered the mouse over various icons and checked tool tips for "TEMPLATE". Not found so far. Where specifically is that?

Thanks.

I want to create a Layout file similar to others that came with the program. When I load one of those, I see that its "placeholders" for images can be moved manually or deleted. I can open the layout in QU's editing window and make changes there if need be.

When I create a page and use the Prints tab to add "placeholders" for images, then save to a Layout, the result when re-opened in QU contains "placeholders" that cannot be moved or deleted. QU won't open it in the editing window, either. So, the first question: What are the steps to make a layout that's editable?

The current goal: An 8x10 page (vertical) containing two 4x5 "placeholders" (horizontal). I'll set the margins and distance between the images manually when I'm ready to print-to-file. (Right now that's my primary use for QU: printing to files that will be uploaded to a mail-order printing service.)

When I select the desired page size and select a 4x5 image size, QU places four 4x5 "placeholders" onto the page. I see that I can restrict the number of images to 2 by clicking the "rotate" button and rotating the "placeholders" to horizontal. The change from 4 images per page to 2 happens automatically. 2nd question: There must be a way to specify how many images ("placeholders") you want per page. How is it done?

Or, maybe handle it by deleting the unwanted ones. But initially after selecting an image size in the "Prints" tab, I am getting whatever QU thinks is the right number and placement and I can't figure out how to delete any unwanted "placeholders."

Ah, I see. In this case since I'm doing print-to-file for output to a Fuji Frontier device, I don't think I have access to that kind of preview.

I'm pursuing it from an enlarge-the-screen-with-software angle now — trying to find out which third-party tool for screen magnification might work best. Windows' own screen-magnifier tool does work but it's crude-ish and clumsy. (What? Something crude 'n' clumsy from Microsoft? Perish the thought.) One of the other freeware or shareware offerings out there will no doubt be better.

Meaning the preview provided via Soft Proof? If there's a magnification control for it I'm not seeing it yet. What I hope to magnify is the entire page, not just the image. The text in question would go just outside the image area and within the wide white margin.

Thanks. It didn't occur to me until after posting the question — Windows' screen magnifier tool might be semi-useful in this situation. It's crude and perhaps there's some other freeware or shareware that does a better job, but the Win tool itself would probably do in a pinch. The mouse is tricky for that kind of fine movement but maybe I could set one of the Wacom stylus buttons temporarily to click-lock and get a bit more control that way.

I'd like to add some very faint (super light grey) text in a border area, below images that have wide white borders — a very faint copyright notice. I can do this with Qimage's freehand text placement but I'm having trouble seeing the area in question well enough for precise placement...Unless it's possible to enlarge the entire page image and I just haven't found the control for it.

I don't mean enlarge the image — but enlarge the entire page as seen in the main (queue) window or the editing window. That would make exact text placement much easier. Can it be done?

I suppose in that case I'm out of luck for trying to have my own profile made — I can't control what they do with their drivers as they run the high-volume machines. They do have a "no correction" option, which means they don't try to enhance customer images in any way, but I doubt it means they're switching off color management entirely. I suppose getting to the bottom of this calls for sundry permutations of how an image can be sent to them.

• sRGB vs AdobeRGB vs the Dry Creek profile
• Relative Colorimetric vs Perceptual
• Black point comp. on or off

The good news is, at least the prints are pretty inexpensive.

Mike — got it now. Thanks.

— Another Mike