Yes - I enjoy Fred and Terry's work also.  Always learn something.  Bot no postings means that all is well - no one is having any problems; no one has anything to say - especially me.

Terry -
Any way this info could just get posted somewhere?  Sounds as if it might be of general interest.  I will certainly want to do this when I get my next camera.
Mel W.

Another way to do this is in the page editor.  You can specify the distance from the either edge, top or bottom of each print.  Just position the left edge of each print at a distance equal to the previous print position, plus the print width, plus the desired separation.  I do this frequently and it works fine.

Thank you all very much - you are reinforcing my thinking almost exactly.  I would rather spend the money on glass rather than sensor size, but I am considering going to an FX camera and probably will at least wait to see how the upcoming D600 stacks up.  Will also check out the DxO sensor rankings.

It's funny - I was not an early adapter to digital.  Ten years ago I was still using my clunky Mamiya TLR 6x6 format and I scoffed at the idea of digital.  I can remember doing a calculation - based on grain size and pattern - but am sure it was completely erroneous - that convinced me that I would need at least 50 MP to equal the quality of my 6x6 or 6x7 cameras.  But that was before Qimage.  I now look back at some of those old pictures - still love the quality of them - but remember not too fondly the many darkroom hours sometimes needed to create just one good print. (And wait till it's dry, and oh my, is that a blue cast or cyan, and how much?)

Mel W.  Columbia, Md.

The separate discussion thread about QU and QU speed in handling a 40 MB file has me thinking. (Always a danger)  With the power of QU, how many megapixels do we really need.  I have a Nikon D200, and want to upgrade, mainly because I want better high ISO performance.  With QU, I have made many spectacular prints (not because of my photographic skills, believe me) routinely at 11x14, and 12x18 from crops of D200 images - some of these from fairly small crops at that.  What I am wondering is - with QU, how much better would these prints be if I had - rather than 10 MP, say 20 MP, or 30?  Has anyone done a test, say with identical lenses, and setup, of same picture taken with different sensor sizes and printed with QU?

I guess what I am saying is, in upgrading my D200, I do not feel any special need to go after a large increase in megapixels.  Am I wrong?

Mel W.  Columbia, Md.

OK Fred - I finally got back to this issue.  Smart sharpen is not the problem.  The short answer appears to be - Mel is an idiot.  The longer answer is I realized I really was not having a problem with raw, only with some jpegs.  Appears to go back to some saved USM settings that I have been using forever on jpegs only - specifically, settings that go back to when the slider was there only as a sharpness equalizer (I use it now mainly on portraits to sharpen everything except skin tone) and even before there was a slider.  I'm still not sure how these translate into what's happening.  What I do know is that if I forget about reusing settings from 3 or 4 years ago, and take any picture through an appropriate workflow, I can get the result I want.  I also need to get used to this printer.  My sense is that on matter papers, the 3000 may be very slightly inferior to the 2200.  But now for the first time in years, I am creating luster and type F glossy prints that are super. I'll update once I have run a few more comparisons; thanks much for the help; your mention of the slider was the tip-off I needed.

Fred -

Well you zoned in right on the issue - it is matte printing.  I almost never printed glossy or luster with the 2200 for reasons you state - just did not like the results.  Even with the 3000, I don't like the real glossy papers, but love the results I get on Luster or any of the F type gloss papers. 

Anyway, for the matte papers - and my normal paper is the Moab Entrada double sided - I always printed with the default smart sharpening at 5 - and have let that setting alone with the 3000.  Maybe I shhould try cranking it down to 4 or 3?  I got some improvement by reducing my normal USM settings which were mild anyway.

I also think what I need to do next is a side by side of the same print, with same settings.  This may not be that easy since I can no longer print on the 2200, and I can't be absolutely sure what settings were used in some of the prints I have - but I think I may have enough "controlled examples" - after I do that - probably over this weekend - I'll see what other suggestions you may have.

Thanks Again

Thanks Fred - I think I am OK on all of those - those settings the same as I used on the 2200 - and I can't see why the results would not be the same.  So now I am fooling with the USM settings.

So, after many thousands of prints, my Epson 2200 gave out last fall.  Have had the Epson 3000 now for about 3 months and there is a lot about it that I love.  I could write a long list of the good, the bad and the ugly of it if anyone cares, but right now, I need a little advice.  What I have noticed is that with my QU settings that I have been using, the prints from the new printer are generally over sharpened.  What I want to do is experiment now, and would just like a little advice maybe on some starting points.  For some reason, the problem seems worse with jpegs than for raw, where I am more likely to let the auto settings go unaltered.

Mel - Columbia, Md.

Congrats to you - you have discovered what I have found to be the perfect formula for solving any QU problem.  I just post it here  - how I am doing everything right and still getting the wrong results - and then one of two things happens.
1 - Usually, as soon as I have posted the problem, I will realize what a dunderhead I have been and that in fact QU is doing exactly what I tell it to do - even if that's not what I want it to do, or
2 - Someone - usually Terry or Fred or Mike will point out the same result as (1) above, without of course, pointing out that I am a dunderhead. 

Terry - That doesn't surprise me - it doesn't do it all of the time.  Seems to happen after I have been in QU for a while.  If I close and then reopen - I think it doesn't happen.  Probably a memory allocation thing - my computer is getting fairly long in the tooth - (not to mention its owner.)

Mel

Some strange behavior - because it is not consistent - and has symptoms of one of those driver problems - maybe.  Lately, if I crop and zoom an image in the page editor, and then open the image and change something - say fill light, sharpening - whatever - when I am done, the image on the page reverts back as if I had never done the page edit crop.  Not sure, but this seems to happen more when there are a lot of images (well - say more than 10) in the queue. Also, when it happens, it happens if I got to the full edit from the page editor or from the main screen.  Anyone else experience this?

Thanks Terry - I think I follow that - I'll have some fun fooling with that - I don't do that sort of think too often, it's one of the few things I have been doing in PSE - and of course the fewer the better.

Wait a minute - I always print multiple images on a page - but how did you do your first example with the prints sitting at different angles???

My external hard drive - which contains the folder I was accessing - seems to be in the process of failing.  It's less than a year old (of course I can't find the receipt or anything basic like that).  I have turned it one it's side and right now is working although doesn't sound good.  I am just going to get everything off of it while the getting is good.  Anyway - I think that is why this problem occurred.