hello All,

a few years ago I moved to Linux with no regrets but Qimage.

So I decided to install XP in a Virtualbox, with just Lightroom and Qimage.

I know about double profiling issues, and set up both printer (R800 Epson) and Qimage as explained in many articles on the web.

However, my prints shift towards magenta (pink clouds).

I tried printing the same image in Linux, and colors are correct, so it's not the cartridges (I don't print often so they could be clogged).

I wonder if the printer which is USB connected to the Linux host, is double profiling because of that.

Anybody has ever tried virtualizing Qimage?

thanks for reading,
-Gian

p.s. a Linux version of Qimage would be just lovely, Mike!

Terry,

thanks for your patience...


well, in a way, none of the prints are "right"... they just don't match.

The problem is that I had the insane idea of printing a few of my "masterpieces" (!) on fine art paper, 5 feet large.
Because I live close to the photo fashion district of Milan, the labs are used to serve top professionals, so there is no question about their ability.
The first test I did, came out quite different from my prints, so before investing $$$ in this venture, I said stop! let's find out a way to talk the same language as the lab.

I must confess that my prints never really matched perfectly what I saw on the screen.
I thought that the difference was due to the fact that the monitor is backlit and you look at the prints reflecting artificial/available light, but as long as I was happy with the result, I did not care too much.

I do not quite understand, in QI Ediitor, what is the filtered<->unfiltered slider for.
The label says it is for red eye correction, or blemishes.
If the slider is half way, I can see the filter effect of, say, a blue saturation of -77,
Because it is very subtle, at first I had a hard time to see any difference.
Is this how colour filtering works?

Fred,

of course the monitor has nothing to do with the printer, but the calibration - as I understood - is the way to go to TALK the same colours with the print service.

I might be happy of my prints even if they are wrong, but if I want THEM to print the same colours as me, we must start with what we see on the screen.

I agree that something must be wrong with the printer, and probably I should invest in new inks even if they are not empty, but still, when I'll have a printer reset to factory defaults, I must find a way to tweak Q-Pro to obtain the colours I want, and have them printed by the lab.

well, frankly I don't know how the monitor was calibrated.

It all started when I wanted to have one of my shots printed at a fine art shop.
The colours came out different from my prints, and they suggested to calibrate the monitor.
Because they serve top professionals, I trusted that they knew what they were doing.

Now, the calibrated monitor is a NEC driven by an HP notebook, and connected to a docking station.
I notice now that I am away from my desk, (and btw in front of the panorama you have printed), that the notebook has EXACTLY the same pixel value of the NEC.

How can this be possible.
I wonder if the combination of external monitor and Virtualbox has messed everything up.

In the end, my printer may have clogged/dirty nozzles, but I can't understand how one can tweak Q-Pro to adjust colour bias, if my settings do not change neither on screen nor on paper.

I was not able to get on the same pixel (cheap mouse?), but at 1702x1202 I get:

with monitor profile
222-211-198

without monitor profile
222-211-197

it seems that there is no influence.

I do not know if it is relevant, but I run Qimage inside a virtual XP in a Linux Ubuntu box.
The monitor profile is loaded in Ubuntu.

-G

now that I know where to look for, I will double check the pixels with Qimage Editor...

ah, yes! ok, I was looking for Qimage Editor in the menus and couldn't find one...
Please bear with me!

I sent Terry a link to download the image, with the resulting values for pixel 1700x1200.

Fred,

I can't seem to find an editor with a colour picker tool, are we talking about QI-Pro?
I have setting to define an external editor, that's it.

Terry,

I don't know why the monitor profile was named like that, but I am sure that the calibration is not older than 10 days.

Will try Fred advice as soon as I work out where is the Qimage editor...

no, I don't.

Yes, the filters have unique names and were saved.
You don't see the tick because I wanted to double check the M-60 print, so I removed the filter and re-printed.

I am sure it *should* work fine.
I like the quality of the prints, but because I did not get the same colours printing a large format in a lab, I had the monitor calibrated.

I know I could pop in fresh inks to restore the original quality, but I am just puzzled that I cannot tweak the colours with the filters.

Terry,

I am testing right now.

I prepared three filters, with Magenta -20, -40 and -60.

I printed a stormy sky that shows no magenta on screen.
There is no difference between unfiltered and M-60.

The settings for my R800 are Icm, NoColorAdj, monitor profile, Epson PremGlsyBstPhoto.
Only original inks, recently cleaned nozzles, no striping or other visible defects.

Considering that the monitor is profiled, my goal is to print accordingly.

One question, though.
The image I'm printing is Adobe RGB 1998.
Could that matter?

thanks for your help,
-Gian

Terry,

thanks for your kind reply.

I do not know much about color management, so I have a lot to learn.

In fact, I was experimenting, and was surprised to see no effect.

I will try your advice, and do some homework.

Anyway, I had my monitor hardware calibrated, and I am using the correct profile for my Epson printer and paper.

-Gian

hi All,

I have tried to remove a magenta cast with the printer filter, setting Red -2 or -10 in white balance.

However, I cannot see any difference.

What could I have done wrong?!

ciao,
-Gian

hi Ryan,

I stay on Ubuntu 10.04 because it's a LTS (Long Time Support) release.

My notebook has 4 GB of RAM.

It's true it can run with very little, but if you give it tons of RAM it will use it all, with no limitations.

I have a Linux workspace with open Firefox, Thunderbird, Openoffice, and a Windows workspace with Adobe Lightroom and Qimage.

The virtual XP is given 1.6GB of RAM, and since I don't go on the net, no antivirus is needed.
The overall performance is very good.