Thanks, all.  I realized later that it is probably the full-size composite image that is saved when the compatibility option is selected that allows QImage and other software to use PSDs without having to render the image from its layered form.  I have used some layered TIFFs, without knowing whether they also contain the composite image. So I will make some minor workflow changes to accommodate all this.

Ernst said "The future will have many surprises."  Yep, and Adobe gave us a few of those surprises in the last year.

Just a suggestion, Mike, maybe a mention of this in your documentation could be helpful to some.  I couldn't find anything about input files.

Stan

Hello, Terry.  Thanks for responding.

I would not expect Adobe to divulge details of their proprietary algorithms.  But it does seem within the realm of possibility that they could make available, under appropriate terms, a non-source code module (dll or similar) that could perform back-end processing of Photoshop output files for purposes such as Qimage, to render them into print or other forms.  Canon, for example, does not release details of their raw files, but they do make available a canned module to perform extraction of (some) data from and/or processing of, their raw files. 

If the two parties were willing, Mike could also disclose his algorithms to Adobe under a suitable licensing agreement.  Read:  $$$.  Likewise for Adobe to Mike. 

I believe you may could find such agreements between Pixel Genius and Adobe regarding Lightroom.

But, linking this to what Fred says, this all gets to my reasons for asking the question.  Regardless of how superior one may regard QImage in terms of its sharpening or other processing features, that has nothing to do with how accurately QImage can render a Photoshop layered file in which the layers specify operations the details of which DDISoftware does not know.

So it seems that the only reliable way of passing an image from Photoshop to QImage would be in a flattened form so that the details of layer math and logic do not come into play.  As I said earlier, my experience so far indicates that QImage renders the layered file (including not all layer features, but only the features I have used to date)  accurately (visually), but as I also said, that is not conclusive.

Thanks for the comments on non-color-managed driver print previews.  They could be the poster child for color management.  Very weird and garish!

Best Regards,
Stan

Fred, that jives with my experience, in that my qimage screen views and the prints are as close as I can tell to my photoshop screen views.  Now, the Epson driver view, that's another story!  :-)

But, you may know the old saying, that testing can only prove the presence of problems, not their absence.  I was wondering if developers like Mike somehow can license or otherwise gain use of Photoshop's layer math and logic.  It is quite deep and complex to reverse engineer in its entirety, and I think is a mixture of pixel edits and parametric edits.  Some kind of SDK?

Thanks,
Stan

Should I take layered .psd or .tif files into QImage from Photoshop, or should I always flatten them?  I'm wondering if QImage has all the latest Photoshop layer logic and math including layer styles, advanced blending options, clipping masks, etc.

Stan

I believe at the time that I had Epson Premium Semigloss 250 or 260.  I was working on the issue prior to selection of an image to print, just selecting page size and learning more about margins and printable area.  Haven't had time in the last few days to spend on it, but I did get a couple of proper prints made. 

Does media type affect printable area?

Stan

Hi, Tom -

As should have been clear from my last post, in which I discussed how the print would have to be cropped or resized to fit within the centered printable area, I do not think I should be able to get a 12x18 on either 13x19 or SuperA3.  When I started this thread, I did think I could do it, because the printable area shown by QImage was greater than 12x18.  However, as I learned more, and that I was looking at a non-centered printable area, I figured out better.

One of my next areas to explore, after selecting an image to print, is to see how borderless could fit in, and you have provided an advance look into that.  I don't understand borderless yet.  Sure, I understand about expanding the image to bleed slightly beyond the edges, just like optical printing has to do, but I don't understand yet how that overcomes a physical limitation of not being able to print within a certain margin of the edges.  And I will have to learn about the loss of quality near the edges.  But first I will explore auto crop, auto resize, and the QImage error messages.

Thanks,
Stan

Tom, thanks for your contribution.

I have done some more experimentation, fitting in with other activities, so have not finished.  But here is what I have learned so far.  This is not even getting to the point of selecting a print yet.

The Epson driver shows SuperA3 having dimensions of 12.95x19.02 inches.  329x483mm is 12.953x19.016.  These are the same within roundoff to nearest .01 inch.  But it is slightly different than 13x19.  I have a User Defined 13x19" paper size also.

Selecting SuperA3/B, QU reports that the Epson driver reports fixed margins of .1167 L & T, .1181 R, .5514 B.  (By the way, those fixed margins are the same for all sheet paper sizes I tried.)  Those margins allow a maximum printable area of 12.7182"x18.3479".  QU shows 12.719x18.350", again very close.  If we want to center this maximum printable area on the page, I calculate that the margins should be .1181 L & R and .5514 T & B, for a printable area of 12.7168"x17.9132".  Clicking Center on Printable Page, QU shows margins of .1167 L, .1181 R, .5467 T and .5514 B, giving a printable area of 12.7182x17.9179, reported as 12.719x17.919.  While these results are very close, within .006", I don't understand why QU doesn't simply create equal margins to center the printable area.  Seems like you should just choose the largest fixed margin in each direction and duplicate it on each side.  Maybe there is some sublety here that I am not aware of.

But note that in any case, the centered printable area is inadequate for a 12x18" print.  QU will have to crop or resize the print a small amount to fit within the centered printable area.

Since we have learned that SuperA3 is not exactly the same size as 13x19, we should expect different numbers if we select 13x19, possibly triggering different behavior in QU in some cases.

Selecting user-defined 13x19, QU reports that the Epson driver reports fixed margins of .1167 L & T, .1181 R, .5514 B, same as before.  Those margins allow a maximum printable area of 12.7652"x18.3319".  QU shows 12.766x18.333", again very close.  If we want to center this maximum printable area on the page, I calculate that the margins should be .1181 L & R and .5514 T & B, for a printable area of 12.7638"x17.8972".  Clicking Center on Printable Page, QU shows margins of .1167 L, .1181 R, .5467 T and .5514 B, giving a printable area of 12.7652x17.9019, reported as 12.766x17.902.  Again, very close, but again I don't see why QU doesn't simply make the margins equal to the largest value in each direction.

And again, the centered printable area will not accomodate a 12x18 print without cropping or resizing slightly.

My next steps will be to select an image that I want to print 12x18 and explore that some.  I want to see the effects of choosing center, optimal or optimal/spacing.

Stan

Terry -

I am certainly not the Honourable Metric Mann, but I am comfortable with metric, no problem.   

Thanks for your reply.

Stan

I did that calculation early on in this process, but dismissed the differences (0-.3-0.4mm, or 0.012-0.016 inch) as insignificant.  And they will usually be insignificant in terms of the final print size, but I have learned that small differences like that can trigger behavior in QImage which I just need to understand better.  And I am not saying that there is any problem in QImage, I know that computer programs make decisions based on numbers, and when numbers reach certain thresholds, certain things happen.  I am just trying to improve my understanding, just my nature. 

Fred, thanks for your helpful and patient replies.  I am going to go off and study this some more to clarify it further in my mind, I will report back with anything that I think might be of value.  Then I can move on to the rest of my issues!

Best Regards,

Stan

I did read carefully, Fred, and I discerned an ambiguity.  You said the Super A3 is the US 13x19 paper selection.  Well, the Epson paper selecetions include two categories of  sizes called US sizes, and the 13x19 is not in either of them.  So that opened the possiblity that for some reason we have different paper selections and I just wanted to get that clarified in case I need to reinstall my program or driver or something.  No problem, we are both using the same thing.


Totally agree, that is why I stopped before even selecting a print, as the printable area did not seem correct, and I had an unexpected result when doing the mouse hover over the printable area in the preview pane with no print selected.  From your snapshots I can see that we have some differences in settings.  I specified exactly what my settings were, as I started by resetting all printer settings and making the settings I described and only those.  Three differences we know now are Auto Crop,  Optimize Enlargement, Landscape vs portrait, and optimal vs optimal/spaced. 

I originally selected sheet paper and had the same printable area that you now report when you select sheet paper, so your original settings must have been roll paper.  This is the printable area that I referred to as my smaller printable area, which seems to be enough for a 12x18.

So the reason for one difference is resolved.

But wait.  We are getting ahead.  I'm sure that if we match our settings we will match our numbers.  What my problem is is trying to understand the settings and numbers, why a given setting results in a given number. 

Let's go back to what I think the printer driver reports as minimum margins, given in Edit/Preferences/Print and Page Formatting/Page Margins shown in the first snip.  The numbers are .1167 inches for Top and Left, 0.1194 for Right, and 0.5528 for Bottom.  So the printable area should be 12.764 x 18.330.  QU reports 12.719 vs 18.350 on the preview pane.  Differences are small, .04 and .02 inches, but why are they different?  At 360 ppi, the differences are in the 7-12 pixel range. 

The 12x18" print size, using Optimal spacing, has location (margins) of .12L, .84R, .12T, .91B.  These sum to .96 in the short direction, and 1.03" in the long direction.  These are considerably different from the margins just discussed.  For Optimal/Spaced, the margins are .48 L and R, .29T, .73 bottom.  These sum to .96 in the short dimension and 1.03 in the long dimension, exactly the same as for Optimal.

These numbers raise another question, why does QU report printable area of 12.719 x 18.35?  It is quite closely, but not exactly, consistent with the margins given in Preferences. The margin numbers given in the Size/Loc tab of the Full Page editor suggest a printable area of 12.04x17.97.  One of these is large enough for my 12x18 print, the other is not (without resizing or cropping).  Why are these margins/printable area not the same?

If I press the "Center" button in Size/Loc, the left and right margins are equal, but the top and bottom differ by .09.  Why?  I also get the message about the print cannot be centered within the printable area........   But why?  there seems to be enough printable area.  There is 0.96" of unusable space in the short dimension, leaving 0.04" spare room, seems OK. There is 1.03 unusable in the long dimension, but I can only stand 1.00 inch, so there is the reason for the error message.  It needs to crop or resize.  You were set to Auto Crop, I was set to Auto Resize, either way should do it. 

Once I understand these numbers, I will understand how QU works and how I can exert control over it to achieve my desired result.

Fred, I know you are a master user of QImage, and I would like to learn why you use some of the settings you do.  Specifically, Optimize Enlargement in the driver.

Stan

 


OK, first differences.  I don't have US 13x19 B on Epson's paper size choices.  I have a user-defined 13x19, but US 13x19 doesn't show up anywhere, including in US ANSI and US ARCH.  But we both have Super A3/B.  My printable area is also different; same in short dimension, mine is smaller in long dimension (18.35).



Agreed, even with my smaller printable area.


I had not yet selected a print nor a print size, which is why I didn't know what it meant, I thought it might mean the maximum print size I could get within the printable area.  But I thought that would be equal to the printable area.


I now have gone beyond what I did for the previous post and have selected a print, trying to correspond with what you have done.  I selectd the size as you said.  Auto crop is off.  Now the mouse hover boxon the image says 12.00x18.00, as does the queue info.  Hovering over the printable area (white part) also shows 12x18.  The print is scrunched into the top left corner of the printable area in the preview pane.

You said you have half-inch borders all around, as expected, so I took another step forward and clicked "Center" on the Full Page Editor Size/Loc tab.  It says "it is physically impossible to center the selected image on the page with the current print driver settings ......."  Continuing with OK, the image preview is centered as well as I can tell visually, the Print Location info is 0.48L, 0.48R, 0.47T, 0.55B.

I haven't learned the crop scissor so can't verify your readings.

So we have some differences.

Thanks for helping, Fred.

Stan

I don't get to print as much as I would like and can't always remember what I learn from one printing exercise to the next, including QU features!  Actually, I have been having the problem discussed here for some time and I think there are some underlying principles that I don't understand that is preventing me from learning.

The issue is print sizing and centering.  I have read everything I can find on QU help and forum, it seems understandable and pretty simple, but I haven't found the magic answer yet that triggers my understanding.


Epson 7900, Win7 X64, QU 2013.103.  The current task is to print a 12x18 print centered on 13x19 paper.  What could be simpler? Image dimensions are 5616x3744 px, landscape oriented.  I set everything up as I thought it should be but the print came out with one inch borders in one direction and somewhat less in the other direction.  So I decided to start from the beginning and find the root of my misunderstanding.

All dimensions in inches.

First I had QU reset all printer settings, and I started QU.  Set the printer driver to epson 7900, SuperA3/329x483mm Sheet paper, the type of paper I am using, portrait orientation, Output Paper Same As Paper Size, no Reduce/Enlarge, no Multi-Page, everything else unchecked.

The preview pane, at the top above the image area, says the printable area is 12.719x18.350, which is adequate for my need.   My Epson manual says the printable area margin is 3mm (0.118") right and left for roll paper, I assume that is the same for cut sheets.  So I would expect the printable area to be 12.764 by something, almost 2mm off in width but close. In height I lost 0.65", more than I would have expected, but Epson doesn't say.  Epson says for roll paper I can set all the margins to 3mm, I don't know how that applies to sheets.  But the indicated printable height suggests that I can actually get my 12x18 print on this paper.  I have done it before, not doing anything special, and I just measured one as 12x18 as close as I can tell on a metal ruler.

Hovering the mouse over the crosshatched pattern in the preview pane, it says 12.77x17.90 for the image size.  No image is selected, so I don't know what that means.  The crosshatch pattern appears to occupy the full printable area but the indicated height is 0.45 inches less that the printable height shown at the top of the pane.  I can't get the 18" print on 17.90 inches of printable area. 

I think I will stop right here before selecting an image, and see if someone can help me reconcile the numbers I am seeing.

Stan

Thanks, Terry.  I have been reading the help files etc. and have watched a few videos so far, but had not seen the info about what the preview screen is telling me.  Now that I know what the numbers are, all is well (I think!).

Stan

I'm a new QImage user, still on trial version. I have four images on a layout for roll paper on an Epson 7900 (still new to the printer also).  Attached is a snip of the queue.

The four photos show PPI values of 562, 312, 468, and 562. And no, I don't have borderless enabled.  In the Printer driver, Page Settings, the Borderless box is unchecked.

Also, the page size on the preview window shows as 23.766 x 59.766 inches (360 x 360), rather than 24 x 60 in.

All the print sizes are integral inches in at least one dimension, with 0.5" single borders.  None of the images have been resized from the camera raw originals.  I am printing from *.psd files.

I have searched but haven't found any mention of this other than if borderless printing expansion is enabled.

Help appreciated.

Stan