Terry, sorry for the lag getting back to you.  I am not a very technical person, so anyone here please feel free to correct me if I am in error, but I'll do my best to explain what I was talking about regarding partial sharpening.

A Bayer pattern image is a product of the imaging device of digital cameras, and the final image from it is basically the RAW output. Each pixel of an image is filtered to record only one of three colors, i.e. RGB, and a full-color image is produced by in-camera demosaicing algorithms.  It is the demosaicing process which introduces blurr into the image even when using the methods you described would normally produce a tack sharp image on film.

Digital post processing is an artistic tool, so the final image can be manipulated to reflect your own vision.  I shoot only digital in manual, and only in camera RAW.  Also, I photograph people, and most often it is very close up with a smaller aperture, so features are pretty sharp, but, on a close examination you would notice slight to moderate blurr at 100% and progressively more as you increase the magnification.  Sometimes this blurr is fine as it is for my purpose of smoothing skin, or I may need to introduce more, but there are image parts that can not be blurred such as the eyes and lips, or the detail on a wedding dress.

In Photoshop you can apply techniques that allow masking of the parts of an image that you do not want to show a particular action, such as sharpening, sort of in the same way you would mask off an area when spray painting.  So with this mask partially removed from the image, i.e. areas of the eyes, lips, hair, and jewelry such as ear rings or the lace of a wedding gown and so forth, a sharpening action can now be applied selectively.  It is during this manual post-processing that I can remove the demosaicing blurr and return the image to tack sharp, however I am now in complete control of how much and where it is applied and not limited by my in-camera entire image sharpening process as in jpeg or automatic.

A mask on another layer could allow you to introduce another action, maybe gaussian blurr to smooth over pores or blemishes, or introducing blurr that mimics a shallow depth-of-field, etc.

Thanks for asking this question, I hope my explanation helps.

Lj

Hi everyone, I'm Eljae (pronounced Lj) am new to the forum.

I have a question about the Qimage output sharpening for printing.  I currently use a selective sharpening technique in Photoshop.  I photograph people so there are parts of photos that I intentionally leave minimally sharpened, and other parts that need to be very sharp.  I ncrease the view to 50-100% depending on how close up I have shot, to make sure I have not introduced sharpening artifacts.

At this point this is as viewed on my Samsung SyncMaster monitor, so for LCD viewing it is very sharp where I want it.

Should I turn off Qimage sharpening at the time of printing, or does Qimage still need to apply output sharpening?

Thanks.

Eljae

Well, the best I can do is second the other suggestions and add my reasons why.

Spare battery; its a horrible experience to run out of power when you need it.

Extra cards;  I use multiple smaller cards as card error can happen and recovery software is not all that reliable.  If you do lose a small cardful of info at least you don't lose everything.

Filter; if you scratch a permanently mounted lens the camera is toast.

External flash only if the camera has a hot shoe and e-TTL;  The flash to lens angle with in-camera flash is too small and will cause red eye, specular highlighs, and real bad pre-flash eye-blink.  External flash, especially with a coiled extension cord, gives you many more options like; adding a diffuser and hand holding the flash in an optimal position for close ups, a greatly increased guide number, quick flash compensation adjustments, flash color filter additions for effects and mixed lighting...I can do this all day...

...anyways, Powershot cameras are point and shoot cameras designed for convenience and really do not even need accessories, so you could also enjoy this type of camera as is out-of-the-box too...so...Happy Shooting with your new camera

Terry, because this is a very important issue for me, I would like to share my experience with you on this issue.  First, I archive on Taiyo Yuden products for my clients, but I am not advocating their products...just reporting my experience.  With that said, I also use Verbatim.  I always use ink jet printables and print the disc info onto it.

I might burn 100G or more each month, enough to burn out the CD/DVD burners every so often.  I keep my burn speed down to 1/2 of the rated speed, usually 8x.  I only do this because I archive a lot, and I always verify the burn.  So most importantly, I get less verification errors at 1/2 speed.

I also keep copies of these files on two hard drives, and reburn the discs every three years, I have not had parts on the discs go bad in less than that.  I also transfer older hard drive files to larger storage units as technology develops, and I eventually reburn the disc from the transferred files.

I have very few problems with corrupted files burned at 8x.  I store the discs in a dark, temperture and humidity controlled enviroment.  Guessing, maybe I lose 1 or 2 pictures (NEFs and TIFFs) out of 250G.  I am not very technical, so in a practical sense it appears that these relatively few errors occur during hard drive transfers and are not due to disc error.

I hope this helps.

Here are a few sites reported as McAfee Secure links that I found useful and easy to read.  This one has links at the bottom that I use to learn about different media.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-R

And this one is good too, (though the author uses a mis-spelled Japanese phrase meaning "Thank you very much" in the title name, which btw also appears in the lyrics of Mr. Roboto by Styx)...but it is also secure.
http://www.epinions.com/review/Taiyo_Yuden__DVD_R47WPYSB8__DVD_R_Media/content_215012118148

I have no commercial interest in this site, I post it just for your convenience to see the products and prices of what I use.  It too is reported as secure.
http://www.supermediastore.com/taiyo-yuden-dvd-r-media.html?kwmid=513&kmcid=2945700296&match_type=&gclid=CPSV3ubkuZwCFeFM5QodEjTmnQ

Well, in my opinion, I usually stay with the manufacturers inks, and here is why.  I have tried the lower cost inks and my main issue with them is color consistency.  You can however use the very high quality inks that are available, but they require custom profiling and a complicated feed system, so these are only cost saving in large production situations.

With that said, here is the consistency thing.  The manufacturer packages pretty good ICC print profiles with their printers based on the type of paper type loaded into the printer, and the profiles are based on their inks.

When using other than the manufacturers inks, you must use the same inks and paper all the time and have a custom profile built for that particular combination of ink and paper or your colors can drift and your quality decline even with an excellent color management software like Qimage.

So, I can save time and money by wasting less paper and ink and getting a more consistent printer output when I use the manufacurers ink and paper...and of course, using good color management software helps out a great deal too.

Hope this helps.

Thank you Mike, that is exactly what I was asking.

Thank you Fred for the screenshot.

p.s.  Outstanding support!

Eljae

Thank you Fred and Mike,

Sorry for the late reply, I have been tied up at work.

Yes, thank you both for your quick reply,  I found the instructions in the turorial.   My first error was that I read the tutorial too quickly, (and an important point too...that is, read carefully).

My second error was in trying to change the output print size from the printer properties menu.  Re-reading and following the instructions, I just changed the print size from the dropdown on the Print Properties box on the thumbnails page.

Issues solved: user error.

Fred you are correct, I found smart sharpening in the EDIT preferences.  It is located in the interpolation window, and it was selected.  I just did not recognize it on the adjustment window.  The Tutorial states: "As such, all printing options are still valid and may still be used when printing to files: print interpolation levels and interpolation type, smart sharpening..."  I did not realize that the unsharp mask box was already operating in smart sharpen mode, (at least I assume this), because I did not see a label indication in the window for "smart sharpen".

Mike can you clarify this for me:  Should I be able to see a "smart sharpen" label in the edit window, or is the smart sharpen functioning as designed in the background because it is turned on in the preferences?

Again, thank you very much Fred and Mike.

Eljae

Hi Mike and greetings to the forum,

I just downloaded the demo version for Windows.  I shoot with a Nikon D3, D300, and D200, and it was a welcome sight to see my prints coming off the Canon proof printer with very good color and saturation, and with a little tweeking, great sharpness straight off the CF cards.

I am in the Pro version demo while I evaluate your product, and I am assuming that some functions like smart sharpen and prints other than 4x6 are currently locked out, as I seem to be unable to print an 8x10.  Is my assumption correct?

Well all that aside, I would just like to say that your blemish tool is impressive, though I get a red circle in the blemish location at times.  So I just delete the row and refresh, then repeat the process with good results.  The adjustment window with "everything you need" tool tabs all in one place is brilliant.

But what really struck me was how intuitive the layout is, and right out of the gate the user interface, your outstanding guides, and the tutorials and examples make this a quick learn.  I was printing in less that 10 minutes.

What a rare and cool concept...selling a product with an outstanding set of user guides...a win/win combination in my book!  To me, your product is one of the few "leaders" of the pack...high quality and you don't have to spend tons of cash to learn it.

Best Regards,

Eljae