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3541  Mike's Software / Qimage / Re: Here's another little glitch on: March 08, 2010, 03:35:07 PM
From the main window, in the right pane, the drop down to go directly to a page doesn't work correctly.  The drop down open OK, but as soon as the cursor is moved, the drop down closes before a selection can be made.

Thanks.  Fixed in 205.

Fred... he was referring to the page number dropdown right below the preview page.  It wouldn't let you drop down the page number and, for example, select page 7.

Mike
3542  Mike's Software / Qimage / Re: Qimage Updates: Subscribe to Receive Qimage Update Emails on: March 08, 2010, 03:33:02 PM
http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage

v2010.205     03/08/10     

Priority: Low     

v2010.205 fixes access to the "go to page number" drop down under the preview page on the main window.

Mike
3543  Mike's Software / Qimage / v2010.205 issues/comments on: March 08, 2010, 03:32:43 PM
http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage

v2010.205     03/08/10     

Priority: Low     

v2010.205 fixes access to the "go to page number" drop down under the preview page on the main window.

Mike
3544  Mike's Software / Qimage / Re: Qimage Updates: Subscribe to Receive Qimage Update Emails on: March 07, 2010, 04:05:13 PM
http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage

v2010.204     03/07/10     

Priority: Low     

v2010.204 supports a much wider range of formatting options with regard to image formats like TIFF, PNG, TGA, BMP, etc.

Mike
3545  Mike's Software / Qimage / v2010.204 issues/comments on: March 07, 2010, 04:04:55 PM
http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage

v2010.204     03/07/10     

Priority: Low     

v2010.204 supports a much wider range of formatting options with regard to image formats like TIFF, PNG, TGA, BMP, etc.

Mike
3546  Mike's Software / Qimage / Re: Compressed-sensing algorithm on: March 03, 2010, 01:07:33 PM
More than a year ago I mentioned these kind of scaling routines:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_art_scaling_algorithms

I looked into those too... a year ago.  They are awful for photographs!  They only work for pixel art (games and graphics with predictable line boundaries).  In photos they produce pronounced artifacts because they try to make connections that don't exist in the more random world of photographs versus the predictable world of computer graphics.

Mike
3547  Mike's Software / Qimage Studio Edition (archived) / Re: Lightroom Sharpening on: March 02, 2010, 06:56:59 PM
The simple answer is: if you are developing photos in LR or PS to be printed in Qimage, sharpen in LR or PS so that the photo has the appropriate sharpness when viewed at 100% (1:1) on your monitor.  Just don't resample the photo.  Sharpen it as much as it needs to be in order to get the original image to the amount of sharpness it should have.  Then let Qimage handle the rest.  Think of it as "restoring" the proper sharpness to the original: that should always be done to originals without resampling.  Then at print time, print "smart sharpening" is a secondary sharpening that is done by Qimage: sharpening that is needed to make the printed sharpness match that of the original photo.

Mike
3548  Technical Discussions / Articles / March 2010: Smart Photo Printing on: March 02, 2010, 05:48:48 PM

March 2010: Smart Photo Printing


Jump to Mike Chaney's Tech Corner for more articles

Jump to Qimage: the smart photo printing software featured in this article

Jump to old/archived quality challenge w/resolution charts and examples

 

Background

Whenever I see someone open a photo and click "File", "Print" in a photo editor, picture viewer, raw developing tool, or image cataloging program, I cringe.  My face automatically makes the same frowning contortion that it does when I'm watching a football game in HD and then the network switches to the blurry SD feed from the blimp above.  I can almost not stand to look at it and I turn away until the crystal clear HD feed comes back.  ;-)  My fear of printing from software that employs "dumb printing" may sound a little over the top, but it is not unfounded and is shared by many who have found how smart photo printing by "Qimaging" your photos can change your opinion of what really constitutes a "photo quality print".  In this article, I refer to dumb printing as the photo printing process used by all photo applications other than Qimage, including high end photo editors, image/asset management applications, software bundled with new printers, image viewers, and other photo tools.  Let's take a look at what I mean by "dumb printing" with respect to printing photos and how to print smarter, clearer, and more accurate photos.

 

Smart photo printing versus dumb photo printing

Dumb printing refers to the photo printing process used by photographic tools that were designed to perform tasks other than photo printing as their main focus: tools for image management, raw development, and photo editing.  The photo printing capabilities of these tools are rudimentary and the print quality can be thought of as "standard" quality: good enough for some but far from optimal!  These tools, because they do not focus on the print as the end result, simply "dump" photos to the printer driver without consideration of the final print size, how far the original must be stretched or reduced to fit in that print size, how that process affects sharpening, and how to use a truly high quality resizing algorithm to get there. All of these non-print-oriented tools simply dump the entire original photo to the printer driver while at the same time specifying a print size.  It is "dumb printing" because these tools do nothing more than hand off the most important aspect of printing, the final interpolation/sizing/sharpening, to a printer driver that was not designed to efficiently handle those tasks!

 

Dumb Printing Disadvantages

While dumping the original photo to the driver may not sound unreasonable (the driver is designed to print, right?), there are some major pitfalls with simply dumping photos to a printer driver and expecting the driver to handle the final sizing:

  1. Loss of detail: Printer drivers are designed to do one thing well: place dithered dot patterns on the page.  They are not particularly good at preparing the final image to fit/align with those dots, however!  Dumping a photo of arbitrary resolution (size) to a specified print size will lead to artifacts such as jaggies or aliasing in the print.  This is even true when the original photo has more resolution than your printer since "odd" resolutions (example: 814 PPI) don't mix well with printers running multiples of either 600 or 720 PPI.  Most printer drivers use a very basic form of interpolation such as bilinear interpolation which is not particularly effective at smooth and detailed resizing.

  2. Inconsistent sharpness: You may have noticed that your 4x6 photos look sharper than the same photo printed at 8x10 or 11x14.  The larger you print, the softer or even more "blocky" the results will look.  In order to get consistent sharpness at any print size, variables such as the total number of pixels available in the original photo, final print size, and even the internal (native) resolution of the driver must be accounted for.  Your printer driver is not capable of handling these tasks!

  3. Data bottlenecks: Printer drivers historically are not designed to handle huge number crunching tasks.  If you have a wide format printer and print any large photos, dumping the original photo to the driver and asking it to produce a 44x66 inch print (or even a 13x19) may cause errors, spooler overruns, or even operating system crashes!  The reason is simple: most drivers were not designed to handle large amounts of data being dumped in one go, and doing so can overwhelm the driver and cause major headaches.

  4. User error: Most applications don't offer the ability to save/restore both application and printer driver settings so that things like print quality, paper type, ICC profiles, and other parameters can be reliably recalled for future jobs.  This leads to printing inconsistencies as users rarely remember all the settings needed to set up a particular paper for optimal printing.

 

Qimage Smart Printing Benefits

  1. Maximum detail: Qimage knows the native resolution used by every Windows printer driver and will automatically resample using the highest quality interpolation and antialiasing algorithms to ensure that prints of any size have the maximum detail possible!  Bypassing the printer drivers' rudimentary scaling algorithms provides maximum quality for small and large prints alike!

  2. Consistent sharpness: Qimage's smart sharpening takes many factors into account when producing final prints to ensure that your 13x19 photos look as good and have sharpness equivalent to your 4x6 snapshots!  All calculations are performed transparent to the user.  There is nothing to adjust on a print-by-print basis!

  3. Data handling: Smart data management means sending image data to printer drivers in smaller chunks rather than overwhelming drivers by dumping the entire image at once.  Qimage's proprietary printer driver data streaming not only ensures more reliable printing, but it also allows Qimage to succeed in printing gargantuan prints where other tools fail.  In addition, Qimage can overcome printer driver length limitations entirely if the driver offers a roll paper/banner paper selection, allowing Qimage to go far beyond the 44 or 127 inch limit of your driver!  It is not uncommon, for example, to hear from Qimage users who have printed one contiguous panoramic print 20 feet long when their Epson driver stops at only 127 inches!

  4. Eliminate job-to-job setup errors: Qimage's automated job log and its ability to save/recall jobs and printer settings ensures that once you get all the variables just right for your setup, you'll never have to set those parameters again!  Do you use multiple printers or just multiple papers with different ICC profiles that require specific printer driver settings?  Just set them once, save, and recall at any time.

 

Trust Qimage!

Compared to Photoshop
Actual scanned print example (rose stamens)
~ 1 inch close-up of 40x30 inch print
Open photo and print w/identical printer driver settings

Photoshop CS4 Qimage

 

Compared to Lightroom
Actual print enlargement from original Sigma SD14 1:1 crop

Lightroom 3 Qimage

 

It should be clear by now that other applications that offer photo printing just were not designed with optimal print quality in mind.  Whether you are an amateur or professional, printing is the culmination of your photography.  It is the end result of why you carry that camera!  Why trust this final rendering of art to anything but software that was designed to make the most of it?  Qimage printing quality exceeds that of any other application available.  I know how frustrating it is to live in a world where many companies don't deliver on their claims.  My company is proud to be the exception to that rule!  But don't take my word for it: give Qimage a try and see for yourself!

 

Mike Chaney

3549  Mike's Software / Qimage / Re: Compressed-sensing algorithm on: March 02, 2010, 05:18:59 PM
I think the general principle would give similar results to existing processes for the sort of photography we are involved in, but may work well for particular types of images and the way in which that image data is collected.

That was my initial reaction.  I believe we've gone about as far as we can go with photographic interpolation algorithms.  Some are a little sharper than the "hybrid" method in Qimage, but generally when you try to shoot for very sharp edges in a "random" photograph like some of the sharper algorithms do, you end up with a photo that looks a little more like a charcoal drawing than a photo.  The reason is that you've broken the relationship between sharpness and image size because there simply isn't enough data in the original to determine whether or not those edges should really be that sharp.  It's a balance, really, but you can't get something for (from) nothing.  The super-sharp edge detection algorithms do work well for non-photographic images like computer graphics (pie charts, screen shots, geometric 3D renderings, etc.).

I also have to say that there's less need for the super-refined interpolation algorithms these days than in the past.  Most people have cameras that have enough pixels to do the job.  The emphasis now is on proper sizing for printing so that you get the most of the pixels you do have, regardless of how many.  Of course, that's what the smart sharpening in Qimage is designed to do.

Mike
3550  Mike's Software / Qimage / Re: Compressed-sensing algorithm on: March 02, 2010, 02:59:58 PM
Thanks.  I'll take a look.  Looks a little like "vaporware", especially since the example (Obama) is certainly fabricated.  The problem with algorithms that claim to get that kind of result is that there simply is not enough data in the original to derive the result.  Hence the fabrication of the result in their example.

Mike
3551  Mike's Software / Qimage / Re: How to make a normal thermal printer to print wide format on: March 01, 2010, 03:52:30 AM
You need to start with examining the print head. If you know for example, that it has a basic dpi of 400, and it operates on 5V, then you have at least a couple of options.

1) using a very fine saw, slice the head into sections, and spread them over a 120 by 320 area. This will not give you such a fine basic dpi, but by dithering, and skilful application of software, then this physical handicap can be resolved.

2) alternatively you have, from the first assumption, 5 volts giving enough energy for the head to print 14 square inches. Now you want to cover an area of 38400 inches square so you will need  a voltage of about 2742.857142857etc. volts. This is normally far too high, so you need to obtain a phase reluctance inductive capacitorsionator, to a value of 29.9 MG. If you decide to drive the printhead at he higher voltage, without using a pric, then instead of getting a nicely rendered large print, you are likely to get a single small black spot in the corner, where the print head used to be.

I've read your specifications, however, I believe after doing the math that if such a device were to do the actual printing, at least part of the printhead would be traveling faster than the speed of light.  My fear is that in doing so, a micro black hole may be created that could envelop the earth.  In addition, as the printhead approaches the speed of light, its mass will approach infinity.  Also not a good combination for those of us here on earth.

There is an easier solution: one that doesn't risk all life on our planet.  Since Qimage can print posters, just enter the size you like and Qimage will create a 60 x 46 page print that you can piece together.  Just make sure you have 2760 sheets loaded before you begin printing!

Cheesy

Mike
3552  Mike's Software / Qimage / Re: Which Interpolation Type Do You Use? on: February 28, 2010, 05:28:56 PM
I printed an image using both Hybrid and Hybrid SE and noticed no difference at 12"x16". The photo is a little soft to begin with, so I think I'll find a nice sharp photo and test it again.

It can be tough to see, actually.  You'd have to print a sharp photo with a lot of fine detail to see the difference.  If you have a portrait shot of someone with a ruddy complexion, some wrinkes, freckles, a 5 o'clock shadow, etc. and  you don't want to accentuate the fine details, SE comes out a little smoother/softer in those instances.  That's really what it was designed for.

Mike
3553  Mike's Software / Qimage / Re: v2010.202 issues/comments on: February 28, 2010, 04:39:49 PM
Fixed in v2010.203.

Mike
3554  Mike's Software / Qimage / Re: Qimage Updates: Subscribe to Receive Qimage Update Emails on: February 28, 2010, 04:39:17 PM
http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage

v2010.203     02/28/10     

Priority: Low     

v2010.203 fixes a bug that was causing thumbnails to not reappear after restarting Qimage when an album was selected prior to exiting (Studio Edition).

Mike
3555  Mike's Software / Qimage / v2010.203 issues/comments on: February 28, 2010, 04:38:54 PM
http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage

v2010.203     02/28/10     

Priority: Low     

v2010.203 fixes a bug that was causing thumbnails to not reappear after restarting Qimage when an album was selected prior to exiting (Studio Edition).

Mike
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